Overview
- A study published Saturday in the journal Palaeontology used CT and X‑ray imaging to reassemble museum specimens and concluded Praearcturus gigas is a scorpion about one metre long with roughly 16 cm pincers.
- The team matched fragmentary fossils from Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Tredomen Quarry with comparative material, including a sternum described from Canada, to tie disparate museum holdings into a single species.
- Anatomical details such as flap‑like epimera led authors to infer at least partial aquatic habits, which could have let the animal exploit water to support larger body size.
- Confirming Praearcturus as a scorpion moves evidence for extreme arthropod size back to the Early Devonian, about 415 million years ago, and the authors say ecological opportunity and water use — not only high atmospheric oxygen — likely helped drive gigantism.
- The paper points to follow‑up work on the animal’s ecology, phylogenetic placement and function and highlights how modern imaging and assembling century‑old collections can resolve long‑standing taxonomic questions.