Posted on 03/08/2006 1:17:15 PM PST by S0122017
Scorpion bigger than human described
Nov. 30, 2005 Courtesy Nature and World Science staff
A geologist working in Scotland has uncovered footprints that he says come from a fearsome water scorpion bigger than a human.
The Desert Hairy Scorpion Hadrurus arizonensis (Courtesy Imagers NASA Science Education)
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The tracks were made about 330 million years ago by a six-legged creature called Hibbertopterus, according to Martin Whyte of the University of Sheffield, U.K.
Hibbertopterus was some 1.6 metres (5¼ feet) long and a metre (3¼ feet) wide, he added.
The tracks show that this now-extinct group of animals, previously thought to dwell in water only, could also survive on land, according to Whyte.
At around the same time as the creature lived, scientists believe our own four-limbed ancestors were also making their first steps towards leaving the water and colonizing the land.
The six-metre-long trackway reveals strides that were 27 cm (11 inches) long, and also features a central groove left by the creatures dragging tail, according to Whyte. This, he added, shows the creature was probably a very slow, lumbering beast when moving on land.
Whyte described the finding in the Dec. 1 issue of the research journal Nature.
Yay! You get a cookie!
No, I'm about to go home and don't have time to look up the article and it's also likely that they did not date it but cited others' research. Another poster replied to you that this strata is quite well known, perhaps you should ask that person for some hints on sources of this information. Or go hit your closest university library. It's quite interesting stuff.
LOL - I am not THAT curious. Just wondering. I just like more details I guess.
'Clash of the Titans'
Nam Vet
Or a fine crab-leg dinner. Of course, at a meter wide, who would be for dinner would be up for grabs...
I always loved Raquel Welch.
Basically, they measure the proportions of mother/daughter radioisotopes found in those rock layers, including Uranium-238/Lead-206, Uranium-235/Lead-207, Thorium-232/Lead-208, Rubidium-87/Strontium-87, Potassium-40/Argon-40, and Samarium-147/Neodymium-143.
You forgot the Giant Gila Monster, Tarantula and Them.
Reptillicus showed that we can drag up a prehistoric monster from the ice cores of the artic, ( Beware global warming, what will we wake up)
Thanks!
Scorpion bigger than human described
Obviously wasn't found by a fisherman
That was a really bad movie.
Was the force of gravity less then? I mean less than now? That doesn't look engineerable with today's G and g.
God created it 330 million years ago. My scripture book tells me so, "The book of the scorpion."
The best if used by date was stamped on the bottom.
The time was dominated by large insects.
Really big spiders, really big dragon-flys, lots of other large scorpian species, some large amphibians and a few moderate sized reptiles.
And Helen Thomas was in there somewhere too.
Now that makes sense!
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