The fossil was discovered in January 2018 in a piece of sandstone that fell from a cliff on the beach in Howick Bay, Northumberland. The rock had cracked open, revealing the fossil.
“It was an absolute fluke of a discovery,” said Neil Davies, a lecturer in sedimentary geology at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, who said the fossil was seen by a former doctoral student.
“It was an incredibly exciting discovery, but the fossil is so big that it took four of us guys to get it to the top of the cliff,” Davis said in a news statement.
The fossil remains of an organism called Arthropleura of the Carboniferous period, about 326 million years ago. This is 100 million years before the rise of the dinosaurs.
When alive, the creature was estimated to have been 55 cm (22 in) wide and 2.63 m (8.6 ft) long, weighing 50 kg (110 lb). The statement said this would make it the largest known invertebrate ever found – larger than the ancient sea scorpions, which previously received the title. Invertebrates are animals that do not have a backbone.
“This is definitely the biggest bug ever,” Davis confirmed via email.
It is only the third Arthropleura fossil to be discovered. The other two were found in Germany and were much smaller than the new specimen.
To get such a big size, he must have eaten nutritious food. At that time, Britain lay on the equator, and invertebrates and early amphibians probably lived off vegetation growing in a series of creeks and rivers.
Researchers think the fossil skeleton was probably a molten section of the exoskeleton that was filled with sand, preserving it.
“Finding these giant millipede fossils is rare, because once they die, their bodies go into disarray. (separated at the joints), so it is likely that the fossil is a molten carpet that the animal sheds as it grows,” Davis said in the statement.
“We haven’t found a fossilized head yet, so it’s difficult to know everything about them,” he said.
Arthropleura animals crawled for about 45 million years before becoming extinct. It is not known exactly why they disappeared, but it may be due to a changing climate that did not suit them. Or it could have been during the emergence of reptiles, which dominated a single type of habitat.
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