A team of paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History, the Australian Museum Research Institute, and the WB Clarke Geoscience Center, in Australia, has added new evidential data for pterygotid eurypterids from the Silurian and Devonian in New South Wales.
There once existed a group of giant sea scorpions belonging to the family Pterygotidae, some as large as an adult human being, all belonging to a group of arthropods called eurypterids.
They lived approximately 444 million years ago, during the Paleozoic.
No evidence of them has been found since 393 million years ago, suggesting extinction due to a change in the environment.
The research team noted that little evidence has been found of pterygotids living in what is now Australia, mostly due to lack of research.
The researchers note that the fossils were mostly of exoskeletons, one of a Pterygotus, the other Jaekelopterus, which were the largest sea scorpion species.
This find, the researchers note, suggests the creatures had the ability to cross the ocean, a journey that would have been thousands of kilometers.
The research team suggests that gigantism may have played a role in their ability to migrate such long distances, though they note the cause and effect could have been the other way around.
New evidence for pterygotid eurypterids from the Devonian and Silurian periods in New South Wales has been added by a group of paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History, the Australian Museum Research Institute, and the WB Clarke Geoscience Center in Australia. The journal Gondwana Research publishes their paper.
A class of arthropods known as eurypterids formerly included enormous sea scorpions from the Pterygotidae family, some of which were as big as an adult human. During the Paleozoic Era, roughly 444 million years ago, they lived. Since 393 million years ago, no trace of them has been discovered, indicating that their extinction was caused by environmental changes.
The study team observed that, primarily as a result of a dearth of research, there has been little evidence of pterygotids living in what is now Australia. In an effort to make things right, they examined rock formations in New South Wales that contained evidence of the extinct animals. They discovered two new instances of pterygotid eurypterids, one from the Devonian (419.2 to 358.9 million years ago) and the other from the Silurian (443.8 to 419.2 million years ago).
The majority of the fossils, according to the researchers, were exoskeletons from two different species of sea scorpions: Pterygotus and Jaekelopterus. Comparable to those discovered near the supercontinent Gondwana, they were almost an exact match. According to the researchers, this discovery implies that the organisms were capable of traveling thousands of kilometers across the ocean.
The research team notes that the cause and effect may have been reversed, but they speculate that gigantism may have contributed to their capacity for such long-distance migration. Furthermore, why they vanished so quickly is still unknown. The researchers want to know why, so they intend to keep searching.
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