Meet monster like sea scorpion from ancient seas

Meet monster like sea scorpion from ancient seas
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Highlights

The fossil of a previously unknown “sea scorpion” - an extinct monster-like predator that swam the seas some 467 million years ago - has been discovered in Iowa in the US. Measuring over 1.5 metres long, Pentecopterus is the oldest known species of eurypterid (sea scorpion) and is related to modern arachnids.

New York: The fossil of a previously unknown “sea scorpion” - an extinct monster-like predator that swam the seas some 467 million years ago - has been discovered in Iowa in the US. Measuring over 1.5 metres long, Pentecopterus is the oldest known species of eurypterid (sea scorpion) and is related to modern arachnids.


It has the sleek features of a penteconter, one of the first Greek galley ships. According to a Yale University research team, Pentecopterus could grow to nearly six feet, with a long head shield, a narrow body, and large, grasping limbs for trapping prey.


It is the oldest described eurypterid -- a group of aquatic arthropods that are ancestors of modern spiders, lobsters and ticks. This shows that eurypterids evolved some 10 million years earlier than we though.

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