Jeholia longchengi grew to about 4 inches (10 cm) in length and played an important role in the food chain of the Cretaceous ecosystem. (Image courtesy of NIGPAS)
A famous fossil find from the Early Cretaceous period has revealed a previously undescribed species of scorpion that lived about 125 million years ago.
This poisonous scorpion was larger than many ancient and modern members of its species. Scientists believe it may have played an important role in the food chain, eating spiders, lizards, and even small mammals that inhabited its ecosystem.
It's only the fourth land scorpion found in China and the first Mesozoic scorpion found in the country, researchers reported Jan. 24 in the journal Science Bulletin.
Most Mesozoic scorpions (252 million to 66 million years ago) are preserved in amber. Fossil scorpions are much rarer because the arachnids live under rocks and branches, which reduces their chances of becoming stuck in sediment and fossilizing, said study co-author Diying Huang, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China.
Scientists discovered the fossil in the Yixian Formation, a famous Early Cretaceous find in northeastern China. The team named the new species Jeholia longchengi. “Jeholia” refers to the Jehol biota, an ecosystem in northeastern China during the Early Cretaceous about 133 to 120 million years ago, and “longchengi” refers to the Longcheng area of Chaoyang, China, where the fossil is currently located.
Fossil scorpions are very rare. J. longchengi is only the fourth land species found in China.
J. longchengi was about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, making it one of the giants of its time. “Other Mesozoic scorpions are considerably smaller, most of them no more than half the size of the new species,” Huang told Live Science in an email.
J. longchengi has a pentagonal body and rounded spiracles, which are openings in its body that allow it to breathe. These features are similar to those seen in several families of modern scorpions found in other parts of Asia. However, unlike these families, J. longchengi has fairly long legs and slender pedipalps, or pincers, that lack spines along the segment known as the patella.
Fossils of many other animals have been found in the Jehol biota, including dinosaurs, birds, mammals
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