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Scientists discover fossil of supersized sea scorpion.

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Place your cursor over the slideshow for captions.
magine a lobster that’s twice as big as you! That’s what scientists recently found. Well, sort of. (Don’t get out your bibs and butter yet!) They found the fossilized claw of a giant, 8-foot sea scorpion that terrorized the high seas millions of years ago. It’s the largest sea scorpion ever discovered.

Don’t worry—you won’t encounter sea scorpions at a beach near you. They became extinct about 200 million years ago. British paleontologist Markus Poschmann found the fossil in a quarry in Germany while digging with his hammer and chisel. He noticed what looked like part of a claw jutting out of the rock. “After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw. Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and get it out,” he says. “The pieces had to be cleaned separately, dried and then glued back together.” A sea scorpion had strong claws, so it is not unusual for scientists to find them. Most other parts of a sea scorpion’s body disintegrate over time.

Scientists knew ancient creatures could be big, but not this big. “This is an amazing discovery. We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes … and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized just how big some of these … creepy-crawlies were,” said paleontologist Simon Braddy, who studied and wrote about the discovery with Poschmann.

Sea scorpions lived about 400 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era. They are in the same a group of animals as spiders, horseshoe crabs, lobsters, ticks, and scorpions. Those animals have jointed legs and segmented bodies. They are called arthropods.

Think About It
Why do you think the sea scorpion and other ancient creatures were so big?

Yale University paleontologist Erik Tetlie was wowed by the news of the discovery. “It shows that arthropods could become larger than we ever thought possible,” he told Weekly Reader. He says that sea scorpions looked a lot like lobsters but are more closely related to modern-day scorpions that live on land. He says a sea scorpion’s tail “looked like the tail of an airplane or submarine.” Sea scorpions used their long tails to help them steer in the water. They used their strong claws to grab their prey, which they chewed with their sharp fangs.

Scientists aren’t sure why sea scorpions died out. Tetlie says that large fish with strong jaws and teeth most likely ate them all. They must’ve been some pretty big fish!

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