A Queensland museum has uncovered a brand-new, extinct species of sea scorpion.
The newest species of sea scorpion, also known as eurypterids, was identified by Queensland Museum using a fossil "cold case."
The Woodwardopterus freemanorum is Queensland's first fossil representation of a sea scorpion.
The sea scorpion fossil was first found in the 1990s on Nick Freeman's family farm in the vicinity of Theodore, Queensland. The species would have been enormous when it once inhabited the Earth's oceans, according to researchers.
According to a statement from the museum, the new creature discovered in Theodore was a huge behemoth that most likely measured a meter in length and lived in freshwater lakes and rivers in the Theodore region, according to 9News.
When informed of the find, the museum's paleontology team was perplexed and unsure of which group of animals the fossils belonged to, making it a "cold case" for specialists.
The fossil of the now-extinct sea scorpion served as Dr. Andrew Rozefelds' focus as he spent a significant portion of the COVID-19 closures revisiting numerous fossil cold cases.
It was first categorized as a "Too-Hard Basket," according to Dr. Rozefelds, but the closures gave him the chance to investigate and evaluate some of the fossil collections housed in the museum, with the sea scorpions piqueing his interest the most.
He adds that based on his preliminary investigation, he came to the conclusion that the fossil belonged to some kind of arthropod. The fossil's location and ornamentation are similar to those of eurypterids.
They identified the species of the "cold case" fossil specimen from Theodore by working together with his German colleagues, Dr. Rozefelds and Dr. Markus Poschmann.
According to Dr. Rozefelds, using established dates for volcanic sediments preserved in the coal of the fossil allows for the most exact measurement of the Theodore sea scorpion. The specimen dates back approximately 252 million years. The scientists conducted considerable research on the specimen and found that it belonged to the final eurypterid species known to have existed anywhere on the world. As a result, the fossil was created just before the end-Permian extinction. Together with other animal species of the time, the eurypterid group vanished from the earth. One of the biggest predators in the lakes and rivers of Theodore would have been the extinct species of sea scorpion.
Eurypterids; The Giant Prehistoric Sea Scorpions
The Yale Peabody Museum describes the extinct Eurypterids as a group of chelicerates or arthropods that were closely related to modern spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, mites, and ticks. These animals, which are frequently found in Silurian-aged rocks, flourished on Earth for more than 200 million years before succumbing to extinction 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian.
The only eurypterids that can swim over huge open oceans are sea scorpions. The largest arthropods are pterygotid eurypterids, which can grow to lengths of more than eight feet.
