A few old age back , scientists divulge the fossil of a giant marine Scorpio ( Acutiramus cummingsi ) that populate some 400 million years ago . This two meter longmonsterwas thought to be a top vulture of the seas , open of track down fair game and tearing it to shred with nipper the sizing of tennis rackets . vocalise middling terrific , right ? Well , much to our disappointment , newresearchcarried out by scientist at Yale and University College Cork has intimate that this beast was more of agentle giantthan the Kraken in disguise .
member of the Pterygotidae family , which includesA. cummingsi , vagabond the seas some436 - 402 million age agoand were the tumid arthropod that ever live , reaching lengths of over two meters . These now out animals possessed vast claws ( lined with crisp teeth , no less ) andforward - confront compound eye , which led scientists to believe that they were formidable predators that could hunt down armoured cephalopod , big or small , and crush their hard shells . Now , for the 2nd time , a study has suggested that this assumption may have been a lilliputian hasty .
A few years back , researchcarried out onAcutiramus ’s tweezer found that they were too weakly to be able to crack open backbreaking shell . Furthermore , the restricted mobility of the claw intend that they were more suitable to grasping prey on the seafloor than enchant fast swimming organisms . In the latest study , which has been put out inBiology Letters , researchers bestow to the notion that these creatures were more likely to be pack rat than top predatory animal with the finding that they had very poor eyesight .
The researchers made this discovery by investigate the eye of severalA. cummingsispecimens with the help of an electron microscope . They made appraisal of center size and lens angle and then compared this information with data receive from smaller relatives and modern arthropod . They conclude thatA. cummingsiwould have hadpoor optic acuityand therefore would n’t have been able to pick up tight moving prey . This elephantine creature would have therefore been more suited to feeding on soft - bodied animals such assea slugs , or perhaps even plant . However , the researchersnotethat it is difficult to make assertions about conduct from fossils , so it stay a hypothesis that they were still moderately feisty .
[ ViaPhys.org , National Geographic , Biology LettersandLive Science ]
