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2.5m Water Scorpion Stalks Southern Africa
MeredihtJT writes: "The giant water scorpion well over two metres long made its way slowly over the sea floor, about 100m to 200m below the surface of the water. It would take another 260 million years for South African Palaentologist, geologist and 'pizza-maker' Roger Smith to find it."
Little does the future Los Angeles know that I have already deployed my own Giant Water Scorpion to attack them in their sleep, millenia hence. Crawl, my pretty! Crawl!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
CmdrTaco is probably locating submitted articles that reference small, low-bandwidth websites and Slashdotting them to impress Kathleen.
:p)
This one is already gone, apparently.
(Congratulations, Taco.
Do you like German cars?
Before anyone even starts with the Jurassic park stuff, it is not possible.
260 Million years is long enough for every carbon atom in a piece of bone several feet thick to exchange for silicon. Time(absolute) =~ 20,000 Million yrs.; we're talking about 1% of the age of the universe here, guys. It is a very, very long time.
So, even if you did recover something that looked like a biological molecule from a sample of this thing, all of the information content would have been destroyed long, long ago.
Scorpion growth factors, on the other hand, are well understood. In a strict sense, genetically modified scorpions are more like a modern scorpion that the one in the article. However, they are nearly as cool, they give you some idea of how such a creature may have lived, and you can feed fools to them when they've foiled your plans for the last time.
So, if anyone wants an eight foot long scorpion, I've started making them and I - Get away! No, no, I am your master! Aieeeee!
Anyway, this critter is weird but it pales in comparison to the real freaky shit in the burgess shale. If you want to know what body types evolution has abandoned (but might take up elsewhere in the galaxy?) check this out. It is a must read for anyone with an interest in writing 'hard' science fiction with aliens in it.
"Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve 'aarrggh'. He'd just say it!" - King Arthur Pendragon
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
What makes them beleive that these fossilized footprints are directly related to a scorpion that they have no other proof of?
They talk about finding the fossil and how it means there was a giant scorpion, but not once does it say why they beleive that these trails were left by some giant scorpion. Why do these two long blobs automatically belong to a giant scorpion? Did they find a fossil? Was there some semblance between these footprints and a common day scorpion? They find an impression of a giant tail? I see absolutely 0 in any way tieing the footprints to a scorpion.
Well, he did do Episode I...
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
How do they know it's a giant scorpion? Because they're god-damned smart, that's how.
Seriously, I'm not being a smart-ass. Have you ever watched a documentary on these people? They're incredible. They'll be at some site, and the paleontologist will come across what looks like a tiny white rock stuck in the ground, and he'll exclaim "Wow! It looks like the pelvis of a juvenile stegosaurous!" And you say "How the hell does he know that?" and then they dig up the fossile, and what do you know... Juvenile stegosaur. Sometimes they actually explain how they figure this stuff out... And while the conclusion seemed odd at the time, by the time they're done explaining, you're sorry you ever doubted them because they're god-damn smart. Frankly, I have no trouble believing that this guy recognized the tracks of an ancient scorpion on sight.
Though to more directly answer your question -- I'm sure this isn't the -very first- evidence of ancient, giant scorpions they've found. So basically, they're going off what they already know, and this fossil expands that knowledge.
You should watch more Discovery Channel. It's the best thing on TV.
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I found this interesting artist's impression of how the giant fossil creature may have looked.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What happened to the theory that a creature with a chitinous exoskeleton could not support it's own weight if it was much bigger than a modern day king crab? King Crabs are maybe 2 meters across and 25 pounds at best. Once out of the water, an exoskeleton can support much less weight otherwise we would be overrun by 25 lb cockroaches.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.