Giant 8-foot scorpions once terrorized Earth’s oceans with giant claws and ‘toothy’ legs to crush prey

GIANT marine scorpions much larger than humans ever wandered and hunted in ancient oceans.

Creepy creatures have been documented in a new study trying to complete the irregular scientific record of Australian marine scorpions.

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Great creatures date back to a period called the Paleozoic Era.

This was around 541 million and 252 million years ago, before dinosaurs took over the planet.

It was a time when arthropods, like insects, crustaceans, and scorpions, could reach extreme sizes.

Paleozoic arthropods were some of the largest animals on Earth at the time and would have been found in many oceans around the world.

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We know that marine scorpions resembled the scorpions we have today because of fossilized remains.

However, they are more like cousins ​​of the modern scorpions that we know.

They are some of the largest marine predators ever observed in the fossil record.

This included the Jaekelopterus rhenaniae species, which measured up to eight feet in length.

Experts compare them to modern great white sharks in terms of how high up the food chain they would have been.

The fossilized remains suggest they could have caught prey in their huge claws and been crushed by tooth-shaped structures in their legs.

They were also thought to be fast swimmers.

Scientists think they ate smaller fish and arthropods, but they haven’t ruled out that the giant scorpions would have feasted on a human if they had existed at the time.

Australia’s ancient marine scorpions were first documented in 1899, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about them.

The new study included fossils of marine scorpions that had not previously been observed.

It provides evidence of six different groups of creatures that could have existed in Australia.

Future research hopes to find more complete specimens and better document ancient species.

This study has been published in Gondwana Research.

In other news, locusts are ravaging East Africa as the country continues to fight the global pandemic.

Insects trapped in amber for 99 million years have revealed surprising details about creatures from that time period.

And, the fossilized footprints found in South Korea were attributed to an ancient 13-foot crocodile that walked on two legs.

What do you think of this scorpion discovery? Let us know in the comments …

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