17/06/2026 03:55 - Tecnologia
Ilustración artística de un escorpión gigante prehistórico de casi un metro en un paisaje costero del Devónico Temprano, con plantas primitivas y ambiente acuático
A team of scientists from the University of Manchester and the Natural History Museum in London has confirmed this week the discovery of the largest scorpion ever recorded. The species, named Praearcturus gigas, reached nearly a meter in length and possessed formidable pincers measuring 16 centimeters. The remains were originally found in Canada but remained hidden in museum storage deposits since the 1870s, eluding proper classification until the application of modern imaging techniques.
The study, published in the journal Palaeontology, resolves a mystery that spanned over a century and a half. The original classification from 1871, conducted by paleontologist Henry Woodward, had mistakenly identified the specimen as a large crustacean due to the fragmentary nature of the fossils analyzed at that time.
The most puzzling aspect of Praearcturus is not just its size, but when it lived. About 415 million years ago, during the Early Devonian period (often called the 'Age of Fishes'), life outside of water was still scarce. Forests did not exist yet, plants were just beginning to colonize the coasts, and the atmosphere did not contain the high oxygen levels that later allowed the gigantism of insects and other arthropods (like the famous dragonflies with meter-long wingspans).
Researchers point to a simple paradox: this scorpion could grow so large because there were no other large predators to stop it. In a world without competition, it occupied a prominent position in its ecosystem.
For decades, Praearcturus was stuck in a taxonomic limbo. In the 1980s, suspicions arose that it might be a scorpion, but available fossils were fragmentary and lacked the characteristic tail associated with scorpions. The turning point came with the 2015 study of an ancient Canadian scorpion called Eramoscorpius. Dr. Richard Howard, lead author of the new study, explained that this fossil had a triangular sternum with a central groove, a key anatomical structure.
The team used CT scans, camera lucida, and comparisons with fossils from various British Devonian sites to provide the strongest evidence yet of its identity. Additionally, they identified striated surfaces on its limbs that would have been used to produce sounds via stridulation, a technique known in other extinct scorpions.
DNA-based family trees suggest that scorpions are related to spiders and other arachnids that share 'book lungs', indicating an air-breathing ancestor. If so, Praearcturus could represent an inverse case: an animal whose ancestors left the water and then returned to hunt. According to fossil fragments found in Portishead, North Somerset (UK), some specimens might have survived another 40 million years before going extinct.
Sources: La Voz | Deutsche Welle
Alfredo S. Quiroga
