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Comment on Praearcturus gigas: giant scorpion from Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) of Britain

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Just the abstract is the stuff of nightmares:

Originally described as an isopod in the nineteenth century, and subsequently compared to various arthropod groups, it was re-described with limited illustration as a gigantic scorpion in the 1980s.

“We reopened Pandora’s box”

Illustrating P. gigas with camera lucida drawings, light photography and tomographic data,

No why would you do this

and assign several other specimens from the same formation to this taxon,

Nooo

Several characters supporting a scorpion affinity are present in P. gigas, including large pedipalps with a fixed and movable finger, a stridulatory surface on one of the coxae, and an elongate subtriangular sternum morphology … Uniquely among scorpions, P. gigas has lateral epimera on the mesosomal tergites,

I don’t know what any of that means but it all sounds absolutely horrible

and combined with the fluvial environment in which the fossils are preserved, we suggest that P. gigas may have been aquatic or amphibious.

OH GOD IT’S UNDER THE WATER

I WILL NEVER GO WILD SWIMMING AGAIN

And in the article the cherry on the cake: it was OR IS from Herefordshire. Where I will shortly be moving.

I wonder if lobsters give you the same feeling?

I was hoping it would just be a big crayfish but they specifically rule that out.

It lived ~400 million years ago.

Ah, a fellow thalassophobic. Yeah, no, I'm not going to swim in the vast ocean at night, thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassophobia

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