Scientists find a thousand footprints the size of a car

Scientists claim that the millipedes were as big as cars in the Carboniferous period or 100 million years before the dinosaurs arrived. Scientists have made a surprising discovery on the north east coast of England in the form of a 326 million year old fossil.

Referring from detikINETthis fossil shows the largest mile-long footprint ever found. It is thought to be about 2.7 meters long, about the same length as a car.

The remains of these millipedes come from the now-extinct genus Arthropleura of millipede arthropods, and elevate this class of creatures to the largest invertebrates ever known. . The discovery, first announced in 2018, opens up important research opportunities.

“It was a serendipitous discovery. As the rock fell, and then a crack opened up, the fossil appeared perfectly. This fossil happened to be found by one of our former PhD students when we were walking by,” said Earth scientist Neil Davies of the University of Cambridge in England, quoted as saying by Science Alert.

“It was a very interesting find, but the fossil was so big that the four of us had to carry it up the cliff,” he continued.

The fossil part found measures 50-75 cm wide, and the team believes it could weigh around 50 kg. In addition to being a record breaker, the fossil will teach more experts about ancient millipedes.

In the Carboniferous Age, England would have been close to the equator, according to previous Arthropleura findings. The only two Arthropleura fossils of this type have been found in Germany and are smaller.

The previous findings also indicate that invertebrates tend to live around coal bogs, large areas with a lot of biomass that build up like peat when they die, and finally turning into coal.

It is generally accepted that modern arthropods (the group that includes insects and millipedes) could not physically have been so large, because oxygen levels were not high enough for the Their breathing methods are larger at larger sizes.

However, this fossil comes from before the peak of atmospheric oxygen at the end of the Carboniferous and Permian periods, when the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere was only 23%, not much higher than the 21 % today. This suggests that increased oxygen is not the only factor that allowed arthropods to reach such incredible sizes. The researchers then linked the size of the Arthropleura to a diet high in nutrients and a lack of predators.

“Although we don’t know for sure what they ate, there were many nutritious nuts and seeds available on the leaves at that time, and they may even have been predators that ate other invertebrates and even small vertebrates such as amphibians. said Davies.

Arthropleura animals lived around the equator for about 45 million years, disappearing in the Permian period (299-252 million years ago). The reasons for their extinction are unclear, possibly partly due to the increase in reptiles that eventually affected them.

The fossil was found in sandstone that had fallen from a cliff, and was originally in a river channel. This represents a theory that suggests the possibility that the fossil is part of the spear that melts Arthropleura, which was filled with sand that then preserved it.

“Fossils of these giant molluscs are rarely found, because once they die, their bodies tend to be irregular, so it’s very likely that the fossil is a molten form. a fossil that the animal sheds as it grows,” said Davies.

“We didn’t find any head fossils, so it’s hard to know everything about them,” he concluded.

This article was published on detikINET.

(rns/sud)