World’s biggest scorpions were the size of baseball bats

Key Points:

• Praearcturus gigas, the largest scorpion known to have existed, lived about 415 million years ago in what is now England and Wales, with a body length up to three feet and pincers six inches long.
• Fossils of Praearcturus gigas, stored in London's Natural History Museum for over 150 years, were re-examined using modern imaging techniques, leading to its proper classification as a giant scorpion rather than a crustacean.
• The scorpion lived during the Early Devonian period, a time when complex land ecosystems had not yet developed, and it may have inhabited both water and land environments, indicated by flap-like abdominal structures similar to those of modern crustaceans.
• Researchers suggest Praearcturus gigas grew so large due to minimal competition from other large predators, challenging previous ideas that prehistoric arthropod gigantism was primarily driven by environmental factors like oxygen levels.
• This discovery offers new insights into early animal adaptation at the boundary of land and sea and highlights the continuing value of museum collections in uncovering important paleontological findings.