Newly Discovered Sea Creature Was Once the Largest Animal On Earth

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Newly Discovered Sea Creature Was Once the Largest Animal On Earth

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @07:50PM from the we're-going-to-need-a-bigger-pot dept.

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.

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Nessy, is that you? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 20:14 · Score: 0

It all makes sense now
I've got your by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 20:23 · Score: 2, Funny

2-meter-long, helmet-headed creature....
First post :)
1. Re:I've got your by pecosdave · 2015-03-12 00:50 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Yeah, the NFL is full of them.
  
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2. Re:I've got your by __aaclcg7560 · 2015-03-12 07:03 · Score: 2
  
  Who knew that Klingons came from Earth?
Aegirocassis Benmoulae? by Guy+From+V · 2015-03-11 20:29 · Score: 5, Funny

This is the most "Why not Zoidberg" scenario ever.
1. Re:Aegirocassis Benmoulae? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 20:37 · Score: 1
  
  Unoriginal, that question is already asked among the comments to TFA.
2-meter-long, helmet-headed sea creature by larpon · 2015-03-11 20:54 · Score: 2, Funny

uuuh.. ehehe.. hey Beavis... ehehe
The original... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 20:59 · Score: 1

Rock Lobster.
1. Re:The original... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 21:21 · Score: 0
  
  No, it's Rock Lobsters all the way down.
Your Mother by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 21:10 · Score: -1

Was a Fishy Cunt.
Leviathan by Flavianoep · 2015-03-11 23:45 · Score: 1

O my gods! Leviathan has shrunk!

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The way humanity is going... by Viol8 · 2015-03-11 23:49 · Score: 1, Insightful

.... then pretty soon the largest creature on earth will once again be 2m long - us. Since we seem to find some sort of glee in killing pretty much all the large fauna on this planet.
Cooking by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 23:59 · Score: 1

One question I ask myself whenever I see some new creature is "I wonder how it tastes". It's kind of disturbing when watching sci-fi flicks though.
1. Re: Cooking by rkcth · 2015-03-12 00:20 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
2. Re: Cooking by Smauler · 2015-03-12 02:26 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The dodo wasn't hunted to extinction, apparently it tasted pretty awful. Introduced pigs and dogs ate its eggs.
3. Re:Cooking by tnk1 · 2015-03-12 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  One question I ask myself whenever I see some new creature is "I wonder how it tastes".
  
  Like chicken.
  See how easy that was?
YUO FAIl IT? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-11 23:59 · Score: -1

too, can be a sincE then. More impaired its bureaucratic and fate. Let's not be obsessed - give was at the same and that the fllor Website Third, you
More importantly by OzPeter · 2015-03-12 00:03 · Score: 5, Funny

For a short time I was the youngest person on earth.

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1. Re:More importantly by StikyPad · 2015-03-12 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  What happened?
  
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2. Re:More importantly by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  Some upstart kid took his job obviously (bloody ageism).
3. Re:More importantly by sydneyfong · 2015-03-13 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  it depends on whether you take into account relativity...
  
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Wonder how they find such things by watchcriclive1111 · 2015-03-12 00:38 · Score: 1, Offtopic

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. Re:Wonder how they find such things by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-12 00:51 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
  
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2. Re:Wonder how they find such things by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 01:22 · Score: -1
  
  Of course you wonder. You know nothing about it. You can either study and learn about it, or remain blissfully ignorant and misinformed. The choice is yours.
3. Re:Wonder how they find such things by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 02:54 · Score: 0
  
  As the other poster pointed out, you misunderstand the word "theory".
  When you say "theory", you mean "hypothesis", which roughly translates as "a game of what-if which may or may not have anything to do with reality".
  When scientists say "theory", they mean "a model of reality which has been peer-reviewed and is known to match known observations and measurements".
  Although new observations and measurements may introduce additional nuance and enhance our understanding of the universe, it is exactly this tweaking and tuning that makes it so useful. There's been systematic research into these things, verifying hypothesis against reality and discarding anything that flies in the face of observation (in the broadest sense of the word). What you refer to as "just [...] a theory", is, in fact, the very best model of reality based on all-time cumulative, testable, observable, measurable knowledge and understanding, collected throughout the entire history of our species.
  So, if you'd do us a favour; Try not to be an arrogant know-it all and give theory some credit, please.
4. Re:Wonder how they find such things by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  There is more than one way to use the word theory.
  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory?s=t
  2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
  Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate.
  Antonyms: practice, verification, corroboration, substantiation.
5. Re:Wonder how they find such things by OzPeter · 2015-03-12 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  and make people believe it... just based on theories.
  You do know that Gravity is also only a theory?
  
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6. Re:Wonder how they find such things by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  Really good drugs in college, then they never leave college as they stay involved with the University.
7. Re:Wonder how they find such things by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 05:38 · Score: 0
  
  Theory is not prof it is a thought.
  Theory most people will believe anything.
  Sad part is most people do believe anything.
8. Re:Wonder how they find such things by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-12 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  Theories are tested. The testing either validates the theory, or doesn't. If it doesn't make a new theory that fits the known facts, and test some more. Do you have a problem with that? Or are you one of those religious nutters who claim that "it's just a theory" while you have nothing to back up your own beliefs? Because, based on the long history of religious nutters making the same claim, my theory is that you are one.
  
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9. Re:Wonder how they find such things by HornWumpus · 2015-03-12 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.
  Anne Elk
  
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  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Minor quibble by nine-times · 2015-03-12 01:24 · Score: 1

This is a minor quibble, but the article says:

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
Now, if it's the largest animal ever on Earth, doesn't that mean it also has to be *the* largest arthropod, and not just one of the largest? Or are there some arthropods that are larger, and also not animals?
1. Re:Minor quibble by jps25 · 2015-03-12 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  It was the largest animal on earth half a billion years ago.
  Since then there have been larger animals, including larger arthropods.
2. Re:Minor quibble by mrchaotica · 2015-03-12 01:42 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
  
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3. Re:Minor quibble by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 01:47 · Score: 0
  
  Half a billion years ago the largest animal was a 2 meter long arthropod.
  At another time arthropods were bigger, but there was a larger animal than them.
4. Re:Minor quibble by nine-times · 2015-03-12 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, thank you. That makes more sense.
  New question, then: Why is this a big deal? I paid more attention to what I was reading now, and it says that this animal was 1.6 meters long, so it wasn't very big at all. Why is it a big deal that it was the largest animal at the time?
  Is it something like, this is the last time that an arthropod was the largest animal on earth? And why is that particularly interesting? For the sake of clarity, I'll explain that I'm not arguing that it's not interesting. It just seems to me that there must have been many different creatures which were the largest on Earth at the time they lived, and since my reading comprehension apparently sucks today, I'm honestly asking, why is it particularly noteworthy about this creature?
5. Re:Minor quibble by Immerman · 2015-03-12 03:28 · Score: 2
  
  Certainly there have been a *lot* of creatures that were the largest animal on Earth at the time. But there were far, far more that weren't. I would say belonging to that tiny subset of "largest of its time" is a fairly interesting feature, at least where headlines are concerned. From a scientific perspective I'd say the evolutionary insight from the paddles is probably far more interesting, but that's not going to generate nearly as much attention. Lead with the dramatic, and far more people will hear of the interesting.
  
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6. Re:Minor quibble by nine-times · 2015-03-12 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, once I understood the headline and that it wasn't the largest animal ever, the insight about the paddles evolving into limbs seemed more interesting to me, too.
7. Re:Minor quibble by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 08:22 · Score: 0
  
  This is the same class of animals as spiders, scorpions and crabs.
  1.6 meters is pretty big for a meber of that class of animal.
Pokemon? by rjejr · 2015-03-12 02:00 · Score: 3, Funny

That artwork is straight out of the Pokedex, maybe an ice type?
1. Re:Pokemon? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 08:05 · Score: 0
  
  I think it's both a water and an ice type, based on how it moves. Catching it is going to be a challenge.
Single celled organisms by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 02:03 · Score: 0

I seems to me that single celled organisms also were the largest creatures on earth for quite a while...
Why are scientists so ignorant? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 04:21 · Score: -1

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.
All the evidence in the world still can't disprove a god was behind it all. You're not so ignorant that you wouldn't accept a god as a possibility, are you?
1. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 05:11 · Score: 0
  
  Kirk, is that you?
2. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-12 05:15 · Score: 2
  
  People making extraordinary claims need to present extraordinary evidence. There is NO evidence. On the other hand, there IS evidence that the existence of a god would be incompatible with the basic rules of this universe, so no, as an atheist who makes Richard Dawkins look like a wishy-washy (and he really is an agnostic, not an atheist, btw), all the evidence to date points to god not existing.
  Show me SOME evidence, some mathematical proof, and we'll talk. Until then, the numbers do not (and can not) add up.
  
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3. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 05:41 · Score: 0
  
  It funny how scientists have giving more proven that God is real. But yet they want to believe that this complex world came from nothing.
4. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by amicusNYCL · 2015-03-12 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  You're not so ignorant that you wouldn't accept a god as a possibility, are you?
  Just a god? How about an asexually-reproducing giant, a cow licking people into existence, and Earth being created from the corpse of said giant? That sounds reasonable, right?
  Is it possible? I suppose, it's possible. Very very many things are within the realm of possibility. For example, it could be possible that you are the only sentient being ever created, and everything that you are experiencing is nothing more than a fever dream in your mind. That's a possibility. It doesn't seem very likely though, does it? I doubt that the sky is actually the skull of a giant held aloft by 4 dwarves, and I doubt that a creator god that no one has ever seen decided to create everything with a huge master plan in mind, and then go about "testing faith" and doing other things as if he didn't know exactly what was going to happen (being omniscient, and all that). Is it possible? Sure, it's possible that an omniscient, omnipresent god created everything and then ordered people not to eat shellfish and wear mixed fabrics. I don't think it's very likely though.
  
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5. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 08:18 · Score: 0
  
  If there were any evidence at all that the existence of god would make any observable difference on reality than the question of whether god does exist would be relevant.
  If your concept of god is that it has no detectable impact on the universe than it is functionally equivalent to not existing. Much like I can add "+0" or "-0" to any mathematical equation without invalidating it, but doing so is completely pointless: you can assume the existence of an impotent god or choose to define whatever is responsible for how reality works as 'god', but both are pretty pointless as they make no difference on your results from if you'd assumed god doesn't exist and they add unnecessary clutter.
  There is no evidence that Russo's Teapot doesn't exist either, but the practice is to assume it does not as a universe which includes it is indistinguishable form one which does and there's no gain to assuming the existence of a teapot that has no observable impact on your results.
  This is pretty much the concept of Occam's Razor. If the unfounded hypothetical doesn't affect the outcome, it's best to discard it.
6. Re:Why are scientists so ignorant? by fard69 · 2015-03-12 12:35 · Score: 1
  
  the sky is actually the skull of a giant held aloft by 4 dwarves,
  FIVE elves.
  Heretic.
Almost half a billion years ago. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 05:35 · Score: 0

So what they are saying it they really don't have a clue when this really lived and so we are just going to throw out some guess.
In other news... by StikyPad · 2015-03-12 07:11 · Score: 1

Bacteria, once the largest creatures on earth, are now the smallest!!

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MODERATION SYSTEM ABUSE!! AGAIN!! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-12 08:59 · Score: 0

there IS evidence that the existence of a god would be incompatible with the basic rules of this universe
Hey, Babs, uhm, you do realize that to those people who believe in a god, that god plays above the rules?
And for the record, I am agnostic. I am just playing "Devil's* advocate". I am just tired of science bashing religion, when they know they can't disprove it. And if you can't disprove, then you must accept it as even a remote possibility.
Funny how the perfectly logical, yet unpopular opinion gets modded down by this horrible fucking mod system.
* Don't worry, it is just a figure of speech.
Re:MODERATION SYSTEM ABUSE!! AGAIN!! by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-12 11:04 · Score: 1

I can't disprove winged flying dragons, but since there is zero evidence for them, I can safely say they don't exist on earth. There might be ants the size of humans, that evolved with titanium composing their body so that they don't collapse under their own weight, but until there's at least a smidgen of evidence, they simply don't exist here either.
Anyone who claims otherwise needs to do more than just make the claim. Let them prove I am wrong about the non-existence of god - or as the preacher would say - "Show me da money!!!" (They're called the flock because they're always getting fleeced).

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Re:MODERATION SYSTEM ABUSE!! AGAIN!! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-13 04:59 · Score: 0

Nor was there any evidence for, fanged frogs that give birth to live tadpoles. So there is a possibility, however remote, that your winged dragons exist. They probably don't, but you never can be sure.
As I stated before, all the evidence in the world still can't disprove a god was behind it all. There is a difference between evidence and proof.
It is impossible for them to prove you wrong. It is just as impossible for you to prove them wrong. I would think that on a science-based forum, that would be better understood.
I'm pointing out that, since you can't prove them wrong, you should be a little more tolerant of their people's beliefs.
What a crock by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-13 09:13 · Score: 1

There is a difference between evidence and proof.
Try saying that in any court - you'll be laughed out. Evidence and proof are synonyms.
And why should I be "more tolerant" of superstition? There is NO evidence or proof that there is a god. You want to believe it, that's your business. However, accept that most religions have blood on their hands.

--
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
1. Re:What a crock by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-16 04:36 · Score: 0
  
  Try saying that in any court - you'll be laughed out. Evidence and proof are synonyms.
  What are you planning on doing - filing suit against somebody for believing in a god? What does any court of law have to do with the discussion? We are talking about science. Gather all the evidence you want, it is still possible that someone can find an example that disproves your theory. Therefore, evidence is not proof. How many times do I have to say it?
  Why is it still called the THEORY of Evolution?
  
  And why should I be "more tolerant" of superstition? There is NO evidence or proof that there is a god
  Maybe I should be more tolerant of your ignorance. You may believe it to be superstition, just as they believe your evidence was all set-up by their god to fool you.
  
  You want to believe it, that's your business.
  I already told you that I am agnostic. I'm not ignorant enough to call myself an atheist.
  Apparently you haven't noticed that I keep referring to they/them/their god.
  
  However, accept that most religions have blood on their hands.
  Yes, probably all of them. Considering your track record of ignorance, I guess you're just going to ignore all of the horrors that science has inflicted on us? After all, science is all proof, isn't it? And if science is all proof, then scientists intentionally warped all those babies by giving their mothers thalidomide, right?
  ***
  Here is the part where I would ask you to let me know when you are ready for me to repeat myself again, but quite honestly, this discussion is starting to bore me.
2. Re:What a crock by BarbaraHudson · 2015-03-16 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Funny how we use evidence to prove or disprove someone's guilt. Evidence is proof - but it's up to the jurors to decide what it proofs.
  Or you can just ask google "what is the definition of proof". The first word of the first definition is "evidence".
  
  --
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