Newly Discovered Sea Creature Was Once the Largest Animal On Earth

sciencehabit writes Almost half a billion years ago, the largest animal on Earth was a 2-meter-long, helmet-headed sea creature that fed on some of the ocean's tiniest prey. The newly described species is one of the largest arthropods yet discovered, a class of animals that includes spiders and crabs. The well-preserved remains of the multisegmented creature are providing clues about how subsequent arthropods' legs may have evolved from the dozens of stubby flaps used to propel this beast through the water.

Comments

Re: Cooking

[rkcth]

I've often wondered if they can bring back the dodo or the wooly mammoth if we will domesticate them for food, since both were believed to be hunted to extinction by man, they must be delicious.

Re:Wonder how they find such things

[BarbaraHudson]

Keep reading this kind of stories. But I wonder how the scientists come to a conclusion, about newer species and all the evolution that might have happened, and make people believe it... just based on theories.

1. You misunderstand what a theory is.

2. The current theory is testable, based on observations and hypotheses, and will be altered as evidence requires. It's certainly better than "God did it", which is not testable, has no observational basis, and the proponents refuse to alter their beliefs based on evidence to the contrary.

Re:Minor quibble

[mrchaotica]

It was the largest [known] animal on Earth at the time, and therefore also the largest arthropod at the time. Bigger arthropods have existed, but they came later. For example, the modern Japanese spider crab could be considered "bigger" (depending on what you're measuring) because it can have an almost 4 meter leg span. And of course, Wikipedia lists Jaekelopterus (2.5 meters), a sea scorpion, and Arthropleura (2.1 meters), a millipede, but they both lived about 100 million years more recently than the species in TFA.