Scientists recreate the head of this ancient 9-foot-long bug

AP News ^ | October 09, 2024 | CHRISTINA LARSON

[Red Badger]

WASHINGTON (AP) — As if the largest bug to ever live – a monster nearly 9 feet long with several dozen legs – wasn’t terrifying enough, scientists could only just imagine what the extinct beast’s head looked like.

That’s because many of the fossils of these creatures are headless shells that were left behind when they molted, squirming out of their exoskeletons through the head opening as they grew ever bigger — up to 8 to 9 feet (2.6 meters) and more than 100 pounds (50 kilograms).

Now, scientists have produced a mug shot after studying fossils of juveniles that were complete and very well preserved, if not quite cute.

The giant bug’s topper was a round bulb with two short bell-shaped antennae, two protruding eyes like a crab, and a rather small mouth adapted for grinding leaves and bark, according to new research published Wednesday in Science Advances.

Called Arthropleura, these were arthropods -- the group that includes crabs, spiders and insects – with features of modern-day centipedes and millipedes. But some of them were much, much bigger, and this one was a surprising mix.

“We discovered that it had the body of a millipede, but head of a centipede,” said study co-author and paleobiologist Mickael Lheritier at the University Claude Bernard Lyon in Villeurbanne, France.

[Red Badger]

Just because you can......PING!...............

[Larry Lucido]

Thank God for meteors.

[Red Badger]

Hollywood should make a movie...............

[Carry_Okie]

Don’t get your ankle caught in those jaws!

[rlmorel]

“What could possibly go wrong?”

My wife gets angry at me every time I say that, even when I am joking...

[Red Badger]

[sauropod]

Saw one of these on our kitchen floor the other day.

[SauronOfMordor]

The size of this thing is an indication that Earth’s atmosphere was different in ancient times, with a higher oxygen content.

Insects don’t have lungs. Oxygen gets to cells inside their bodies through tiny tubes going through their bodies, which creates an upper limit on size in the current atmosphere.

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/how-insects-breathe

[rlmorel]

Hm. I just watched the King Kong movie with Jack Black and the attractive Naomi Watts, and they had scenes with giant bugs that made me wonder where they got that idea from.

Now I know. These bugs looked like THOSE bugs!

[Red Badger]

[rlmorel]

I am a huge Far Side fan...I have the giant books with all of them!

[Vaquero]

Very woke version of Kong. Excellent Dino effects…. Lousy human story.

[Red Badger]

[rlmorel]

I enjoyed the special effects! That scene where they were running through the canyon with all the brontosauruses was fun, as was the scene with Kong fighting off all the T-Rexes...

[ClearCase_guy]

These things taste like chicken, so eat up!

[z3n]

Who has enough time for this?

[Tax-chick]

My 15-year-old son was talking about this just the other day. I prefer giant ground sloths to immense centipedes.

[SunkenCiv]

Picnics must have been, uh, no picnic back then.

[PIF]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura

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Oxygen may not have accounted for the size.

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Perhaps gravity was less?