AKURAT.CO The fossil of a giant millipede or luing animal has been discovered accidentally by British scientists on a beach in the Northumberland region.
By paleontologists, the luing is considered to be the largest ever found. According to them, the animal known as Arthropleura was once more than 2.5 meters long. While its weight is predicted to reach up to 50 kilograms.
As the BBC reports, the segment of the luing fossil was first seen in 2018, when a large chunk of sandstone fell onto the beach in Howick Bay.
“It was a fortuitous discovery.
“When the rock fell, it cracked and opened completely, exposing the fossil, which one of our former PhD students happened to find while walking past,” said Neil Davies, from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, who has analyzed the fossil for 75 years. cm.
When the giant millipede lived 326 million years ago, northeast England had a much more tropical climate than it is today.
The researchers also believe that the location of the specimen was once an old river channel. According to them, the fossil may also not actually be a fossil from a dead creature, but an exoskeleton that fell off as the huge millipede grew.
“Finding fossils of these giant millipedes is rare. This is because once they die, their bodies tend to be disorganized, so it’s most likely a carapace (shell) that peeled off as the animal grew.
“We haven’t found any head fossils yet, so it’s hard to know everything about them,” Davies said.
Although the discovery of fossils raises more questions, one thing is certain. It was that the ancient lioness had something in common like almost all other millipedes. It does not have a thousand legs as its name suggests. Researchers believe the luing has at least 32, or possibly up to 64 feet.
Arthropleura is considered an extinct genus of millipede arthropods and once lived in what is now northeastern North America, Great Britain, and Germany. The reptiles are also thought to have lived about 345 to 295 million years ago.
Previously, two other Arthropleura specimens were also found in Germany. However, this Arthropleura fossil in England is said to be much older and larger than the two German specimens.
Researchers believe that to reach such a large size, an Arthropleura must have a highly nutritious diet. This means that during its lifetime the animal has found nutrient-rich plant foods, such as nuts or seeds, and it may also become a predator, eating other invertebrates or small amphibians.
The fossil is due to be publicly displayed at Cambridge’s Sedgwick Museum in the new year.
A paper analyzing the findings has been published in the Journal of the Geological Society.[]
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