Researchers discovered Terropterus xiushanensis, a giant scorpion that lived over 400 years ago in China. Here’s all about the extinct scorpion.
Giant scorpion fossil discovered in China
About 400 million years ago, the Terropterus xiushanensis, a giant scorpion, ruled over the South China Sea. They belong to an extinct group known as Eurypterids. It first appeared about 480 million years ago in the Ordovician age. The group peaked in the Silurian period, about 430 million years ago. However, they went extinct by the end of the Permian exam around 280 million years ago.
The fossil of the giant scorpion was discovred from the Fenton Formation located in South China’s Wuhan, Hubei. The fossil had specialized basket-like appendages. Researchers believe that they used it to capture prey. Hence, the organism was given go-ahead under mixolterids, a type of eurypterids.
More on the extinct arachnid
“Our knowledge of mixopterids is limited to only four species in two genera, which were all based on a few fossil specimens from the Silurian Laurussia 80 years ago,” said Han Wang. Wang is from the Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. She is the lead author of the study.
Additionally, four other species of the subgroup were reported in Estonia, Scotland, New York, and Norway, However, this is the first report of the organism from Gondwana. “Future work, especially in Asia, may reveal a more cosmopolitan distribution of mixopterids and perhaps other groups of eurypterids,” noted the study. After all, it could be a key in unraveling the complex evolutionary relationships and history.
