Scientists Reconstruct the Terrifying Face of a Car-Sized Vehicle That Roamed the Prehistoric World

Millions of years before the dinosaurs appeared, there was a creature roaming around that some people might find more terrifying than any tyrannosaur. Think of a millipede, but it weighs over 45 pounds and its body is the length of a car.

These are the so-called Lovecraftian nightmares Arthropleuraand they are the largest species of arthropods to have ever existed. Thanks to those who found willies in mobile animals, the 8.5-meter-long (2.6 meters) creatures, which first appeared 346 million years ago, disappeared 50 million years later.

The commentators leave a mystery for modern biologists to ponder: How related were they to their distant, much smaller modern counterparts? While ancient giants are often classified as myriapods, a group of animals dominated by millipedes and centipedes in modern times, it was not clear exactly where, Arthropleura which was in the family tree. Scientists from several French universities may have found the answer by looking the strange analysts in the face.

That was actually a very difficult thing to do. Although Arthropleura first discovered in 1854, most of the fossils found were fragmentary—and none included a complete head. The record has been so incomplete, with so many unknown creatures, that some paleobiologists have mistaken the neck-like part for the head collum. There is no proof of that ArthropleuraThe eyes, horns, and mouth may have looked like the real thing, so it was difficult for scientists to see if there were any family resemblances to the multi-legged creatures you find in most gardens.

To solve that problem, paleobiologists, led by Mickaël Lhéritier of the Universite Clauder Bernard, examined the remains of several well-preserved children, and used tomographic imaging techniques to reconstruct their skulls. As Lhéritier and colleagues explain in the journal Advances in Scienceancient arthropods passed on some of their facial features to their distant modern relatives.

Like millipedes, scans are shown Arthropleura they had seven horns, and a modified column behind their heads. Arthropleura it also has features similar to centipedes, such as fully covered mandibles, and leg-like jaw structures called maxillae. While centipedes and millipedes are both myriapods, their exact relationship to each other has been a matter of debate among myriapod enthusiasts. The new findings suggest that these two species should be grouped together, due to the common heritage that makes them more closely related than other myriapods, such as pauropods.

In the full sense of that Arthropleura it seems, paleobiologists said something can be assumed about their behavior. Scientists wrote that the food they ate consisted of dead animals that they could eat.

Although the study provides the most complete picture of extinct arthropods to date, James Lamsdell, associate professor of paleobiology at West Virginia University, wrote an accompanying article saying there is still much we don’t know.

“Without direct evidence from the digestive tract, it’s not clear what Arthropleura he ate,” he wrote. “The respiratory organs are also unknown, which leaves that possible Arthropleura it lived in the water.”

Lamsdell said that cannot be ruled out either Arthropleura spent different stages of his life in different places. So there you have it: millions of years ago, crocodile-like reptiles roamed the land, and probably the water, picking off the bites of dead animals. The next time you see a millipede running around your property, take a second to appreciate its diminutive size before you decide to squish it.