Spider as big as a dog didn't exist

Spider as big as a dog didn't exist
 


THE biggest spider ever to have walked the earth was today exposed as a `mistake' after new research by a Manchester scientist.

The size of a small dog, Megarachne Servinei, a giant pre-historic monster, was widely regarded as the biggest and most terrifying spider ever, measuring more than a metre in length with 50cm long legs.

A fossil of the beast was discovered in 1980 by Argentine palaeontologist Mario Hunicken who originally classified it as a spider, crawling the earth around 300 million years ago.

Megarachne Servinei appeared in the Guinness Book of Records as the `World's Largest Spider' and nightmarish models of the creature were exhibited in museums around the world.

But mystery always surrounded the accuracy of Hunicken's findings.

The owner of the fossil kept it locked away in a bank vault so no one has ever been able to verify it - until now.

Crab

Dr Paul Selden, an arachnid expert at the University of Manchester was allowed special access - and found the `spider' is in fact more crab than creepy crawly.

His conclusion solves one of the greatest mysteries in the study of palaeontology or fossils.

"As soon as I saw it I knew it wasn't a spider, but an ancient aquatic creature called a sea scorpion," Dr Selden said.

"It has large claws and two big compound eyes whereas spiders normally have eight small eyes. It also appears to have a very robust body or shell with ridges across its back which is not found in any spider known to man."

"This creature probably lived in a swamp and used its claws for sweeping up mud.

"If you had to compare it to something which is alive today you would probably choose a large crab or a lobster, not a spider."

The fossil was found in a quarry near Cordoba, Argentina by Servinei, an amateur collector.

He took it to the museum in Cordoba where Hunicken wrongly classified the finding as a spider.

Plaster casts were taken of the fossil and it was displayed the world over as the biggest spider ever to walk the earth.

The original fossil was locked in a bank vault belonging to the Servinei family.

Travel

Access to the fossil was only allowed last year when Dr Selden travelled to Argentina to study the item.

The re-classified creature is similar to the fossil of a beast which once once crawled around the coast and swampland of pre-historic Scotland .

Dr Selden said the Megarachne, a giant eurypterid or sea scorpion, is closely related to a creature called Woodwardopterus, from the Carboniferous Period, found in Scotland and with relatives in South Africa.

Dr Selden has since written a paper with H5/8nicken, who accepts Dr Selden's new findings published today in Biology Letters of The Royal Society.

"Even though this isn't the biggest ever spider it is clearly an amazing beast. It is no less exciting, just a little less familiar," Dr Selden added.

"Even if people are scared of spiders they are still fascinated by them. People don't kill them like insects, they hold a curious primeval idea in our psyche."

The finding means the world's biggest spider ever is now in fact a living one - The Goliath Birdeater, Theraphosa leblondi.

Found in Brazil, Venezuela and French Guiana, the `king of the tarantulas' is much smaller than the Megarachne - around the size of a baby rabbit.

Oops -- Legendary spider "Big Meg" turns out to be sea fossil




She was "Big Meg," the largest of all spiders that ever strode the Earth. The 300-million-year-old fossil was so famous that plaster casts of her body are on display in numerous museums and copies can be purchased over the Internet for hundreds of dollars apiece.

As for the original, it was carefully locked away from public view. It was so precious that it was placed in a bank vault pending the outcome of an ownership squabble.

Alas... a quarter of a century after the historic find, it transpires that Megarachne servinei was never a spider, but a rather odd-looking and certainly less exotic species of sea scorpion.

"Big Meg" unleashed huge excitement after her find in Argentina's San Luis province.

No other creature like it had been found.

The assumption was that it was a giant spider, the mother of tarantulas, with a body length of 33.9 centimetres (13.55 inches), a leg span of 50cm (20 inches) and goggly eyes more than one centimetre (half an inch) wide.

The chance of a second look came with the discovery of another "Megarachne" in the same stratum in the province's Bajo de Veliz rock formation.

Megarachne is a "bizarre eurypterid," or sea scorpion, similar to a species called Woodwardopterus that was first discovered in 1959, according to the new study, published online on Wednesday in Biology Letters, a journal of Britain's Royal Society.

Eurypterid fossils of this kind have been found in Scotland and South Africa.

One of the three authors is Mario Huenicken of the Regional Centre for Scientific Investigation and Technological Transfer in Anillaco, Argentina.

Huenicken was among the team that described "Big Meg" back in 1980 and now seeks to set the scientific record straight.

Poking at things i can find on driders to sate my curiosity, i'm wondering:  are driders, drachnids, and spider-centaur-thingies in general inspired by mythology of some kind, like Anansi, or just thought up by very imaginative people?
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