As if small scorpions weren’t scary enough, scientists have discovered an ancient fossil of a sea scorpion that was 16 times larger than the present-day scorpion—almost as big as a dog!
📸: Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology/Y Dinghua
Named Terropterus xiushanensis, this arachnid was a relative of the present-day horseshoe crab and whip spider.
It had similar spiny attacking forelimbs & belonged to mixopterids—a group of eurypterids (sea scorpions)—also recognised for their specialised arms for catching prey.
The fearsome beast is suspected of having lived during the Silurian period—somewhere between 443.8 million and 419.2 million years ago—where it would have been an apex underwater predator.
Previous research has indicated that sea scorpions were top predators long before the existence of barracudas or sharks, & this fossil confirms it.
This apex underwater predator used its giant spiny arms & its tail, weaponized by serrated spiny tips, to prowl on fish & molluscs.
Previously, mixopterids knowledge was limited to four species in two genera, all based on fossil records from 80 years ago.
However, this well-preserved fossil gives better clarity on the morphological diversity of mixopterids.
📸: Nanjing Institute of Geology & Paleontology
T xiushanensis is the first mixopterid reported from the Gondwana supercontinent, which formed when the large landmass of Pangaea split into two.
This suggests an under-collecting bias in the group.
"Future work, especially in #Asia, may reveal a more cosmopolitan distribution of mixopterids and perhaps other groups of eurypterids," say the researchers.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Despite being highly vulnerable to #ClimateChange and featuring among the top five emitters of greenhouse gases, India is unlikely to commit to net-zero emissions at the upcoming #COP26.
Being a developing country, India is highly dependent on fossil fuels to run a substantial portion of its economy. The havoc created by the recent shortages in coal stands testimony to this.
Achieving net-zero would mean significant cuts in the use of fossil fuels.
India is unlikely to follow the much-advocated net-zero plan, but would rather dwell on improvising goals for the transition towards green energy.
Simply put, India is not against the idea of net-zero, but rebuts the timeline of 2050 to achieve this ambitious goal.
Sometime during the Cretaceous Era, roughly 100 million years ago, a tiny crab marched out of its home in the sea, climbed a tree, and got itself trapped in a dollop of tree trunk goop.
But little did this young crustacean know that the amber would immortalise it!
Fast forward to 2015, when researchers stumbled upon a piece of amber jewellery with a two-millimetre-long crab lodged in it in a market in Tengchong, China.
Leather jackets that are a style statement today (unfortunately!) may have been a trend from the Pleistocene era! Here’s how researchers from @MPIWG found evidence of early humans who wore leather clothes around 100,000 years ago!
The researchers unearthed 62 bones from layers dating from the Pleistocene era that appeared to have been used as tools. Early humans made these specialised bone tools to skin animals and then processed these skins for fur and leather.
Researchers also found broad, rounded end objects called spatulates, ideal for scraping & removing internal connective tissues from leathers & pelts during the hide or fur-working process. A whale tooth was also retrieved, which appeared to have been used to flake stone.
Opening jars, playing with toys, sneakily escaping from confinements, jetting water to soak people—#octopuses are notorious for such intelligent antics!
Their large brains make them capable of high-order cognitive behaviours, including problem-solving and tool usage.
Now, researchers have come across yet another interesting behaviour among the female octopuses: one which involves throwing objects at males attempting to mate with them!
The teeth of a new species of the hybodont #shark, which belonged to the #Jurassic era, have been discovered for the first time in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. #Paleontology#Fossil
The fossils were discovered from the Jurassic rocks in the #Jaisalmer region of #Rajasthan. The rocks are between 160 and 168 million years old.
The crushing teeth represent a new species, named by the research team as 'Strophodusjaisalmerensis'.
The genus Strophodus has been identified for the first time in the Indian sub-continent, and is only the third such record from Asia—the other two being from Japan and Thailand.