Scientists Find Fossil of Enormous Bug

[Akoto]

Scientists Find Fossil of Enormous Bug

By THOMAS WAGNER – 1 day ago

LONDON (AP) — This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.

"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.

Link: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQ9X4-OozXU0E52gi-xaqJR9WsEAD8T1QCIO0

[xchrom]

1. so much for the idea that an exoskeleton

limits the size of insects.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. This wasn't an insect, and it was aquatic.

The giant Japanese spider crab is still around today, and gets nearly as big as this. If you live underwater then you can get much bigger.

On land, I imagine an exoskeleton may well be much more of a limiting factor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura got huge, but was always low to the ground.

I suspect that insect size is going to be limited as much by the inefficiency of their respiration compared with vertebrates as by exoskeleton, though.

(Disclaimer: I'm not an entomologist; most of this is pure guesswork based on half-remembered pop science books and should not be regarded as in any way authoritative.)

[xchrom]

17. this from the article --

''The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.''

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. They obviously didn't have "Raid" around in those days.

And, having "a bug in your ear", or a "bee in your bonnet", would be a tad more serious of an observation than it is now.

[saltpoint]

3. "...our client, Mr. DeLay, was gratified with the conclusive results of the geneaological

research in his behalf."

[Selatius]

4. You would think that if the earth were only 7,000 years old as Creationists assert, then...

the Old Testament would have something to say about giant dinosaurs and mosquitoes.

[Disturbed]

5. A scorpion is not a bug.

Humans would not have survived if they were living among the creatures that got wiped out before
humans emerged.

[Kansas Wyatt]

6. 'God put it there to test your faith.'

Now who can argue with that in a RATIONAL conversation?

[lutefisk]

7. and I thought "enormous bug" was an oxymoron...

:shrug:

[slowry]

8. Scary. Glad they got nerfed. n/t

[BelgianMadCow]

10. "nerfed" lol

yeah a bit much don't you think?

It was better before 1.2 when you could have a great fight with a Venom Spider :-)

[Canuckistanian]

11. They say that an oxygen-rich atmosphere enabled HUGE insescts

Like Arthropleura, the giant millipede, here shown in an imaginary encounter with a human:

[Faygo Kid]

12. Repulsive insects can grow very large - take this species, for instance.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Aaargh ... eurypterids are not scorpions, and certainly not "bugs" ...

as closely related to crabs and trilobites as to insects.

[gatorboy]

14. Ack! Looks like something from "The Mist".

[booley]

15. Didn't we already know this?

I mean they had unearthed a 6 foot centipede on land years ago.

We already knew invertibrates could grow big, the only real limiter was the amount of oxygen available.

[Octafish]

16. Please! Don't tell Swamp Rat!