Millipedes 'as big as cars' once roamed Northern England, fossil find reveals

Full title says it all as all I can say is; It would have been something to see the world the way it was way back when...and survive !! I knew there were big bugs but so far this is the biggest I have heard of.

The fossil—the remains of a creature called Arthropleura—dates from the Carboniferous Period, about 326 million years ago, over 100 million years before the Age of Dinosaurs. The fossil reveals that Arthropleura was the largest-known invertebrate animal of all time, larger than the ancient sea scorpions that were the previous record holders.

The specimen, found on a Northumberland beach about 40 miles north of Newcastle, is made up of multiple articulated exoskeleton segments, broadly similar in form to modern millipedes. It is just the third such fossil ever found. It is also the oldest and largest: the segment is about 75 centimeters long, while the original creature is estimated to have measured around 2.7 meters long and weighed around 50 kilograms. The results are reported in the Journal of the Geological Society.

The fossil was discovered in January 2018 in a large block of sandstone that had fallen from a cliff to the beach at Howick Bay in Northumberland. "It was a complete fluke of a discovery," said Dr. Neil Davies from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, the paper's lead author. "The way the boulder had fallen, it had cracked open and perfectly exposed the fossil, which one of our former Ph.D. students happened to spot when walking by."

phys.org...

a reply to: 727Sky

Well that's apt to "bug" most peeps.

Thank feck they are history put it that way.

Not as big as a car. 🙂
Do you think it was the hot climate, higher oxygen or something like expanding Earth theory causing lower gravity? Or maybe everything gets smaller when the space is expanding.

a reply to: 727Sky

Now imagine what a Protein farm could do with these.

And I wonder how tough there carapace was and what uses we could put something like that to, imagine walking one of these toxic nightmares on a leash.

You know there were - much, much later - funnel web Spiders with body's the size of a human head, not quite as big as one of these or one of those giant scorpions but still not something you would want to have sitting in the corner of your toilet cubicle only to look up at your most vulnerable moment and see it getting ready to pounce.

Need bigger match box's as well so young boy's could give girls a fright with them.

Imagine being hit by an ancient giant dragon fly flying at over two hundred kilometres per hour.

Of course they too may have gotten MUCH larger and we only have surviving fossil's to go by.

But add to this the knowledge filter, things that do not fit the preconceived and established notions of established science are often ignored or outright dismissed.

These were just about 300 million or so years ago.

But so too were many of these and they don't fit the official narrative at all.



So just maybe people (perhaps or perhaps not like us but close enough to leave identifiable relic's we would create) once ATE these insect's? (time travelling colonies in the past?, alien humans, previous seeding of this planet by an extra terrestrial human race? or dating is wrong and none of it can be trusted OR we are far, far older than we believe and therefore NOT monkey's).

a reply to: LABTECH767

I'm thinking more like "the spice must flow" scenario with those big bastards.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

I would go with higher atmospheric oxygen content allowing animals to grow larger yet still maintain the supply of oxygen to their brain and muscles.

Apparently there may have been fluctuations in our atmospheres oxygen levels as is possibly evidenced via drill cores of ocean floor rock dating back to around 205 million years.

As to lower gravity that's not possible without significant change in our Earths mass.

(Australians) "We had those last week, but the 3 meter grasshoppers killed them all."

a reply to: andy06shake
Bugs don't have lungs so higher oxygen is important and why there limited in size

Good thing to even if a bug where only the size of a small dog we would be on the menu at that point

a reply to: markovian

Make great doom porn or a good B movie anyroad.

Attack of the basket ball bugs.

Something that big would weigh...Allot ! They say there is around 4 billion tons of space dust that falls to earth every year. Back then the solar system was probably more dusty than it is today. Maybe the earth rotational speed was faster than today but whatever that was one heavy bug and I doubt it could be frisky (regardless of atmosphere) in today's world due to gravity alone.. youtu.be...

youtu.be...

Film Tremors comes to mind… a reply to: 727Sky

a reply to: andy06shake

CO2 was high too. Up to 9000 ppm. The planet is starving for CO2 that's why we are shrinking in size. Luckily we have the technology to free some from the fossils

Amazing and fearsome in equal measure. Many of us would love to use a time machine to go and see these critters in the flesh, but we'd most probably get eaten and not survive the experience.

How comes we are stuck with today's animals? I want a pet dinosaur.

Imagine what could be out there!
Our own past history, probably pales in comparison to what is out in the universe!
Had it gone differently, or maybe later on in our history....

a reply to: 727Sky

Conversion to freedom units: It was around 9 ft long and 110 lbs. Which honestly seems light for something that big.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I've always believed that there was civialization on Pangea and it broke up quickly causing the flood stories.