by applewood

New research is pushing the scorpion timeline further back than ever before and may help pinpoint the traits that helped these pint-sized predators make a living on land. Today in Scientific Reports, paleontologists announce the discovery of the oldest known scorpions to date: a pristinely preserved pair of 437-million-year-old fossils, complete with what seem to be venom-packed tails.

The dangerous-looking duo, newly christened Parioscorpio venator, bear a remarkable resemblance to modern species, showing scorpions hit upon a successful survival strategy early in their evolution, says study author Andrew Wendruff, a paleontologist at Otterbein University. Though Parioscorpio may have spent some of their time at sea, bits of their anatomy, including internal structures used for breathing and digesting food, hint that these ancient animals were capable of scuttling ashore—perhaps, even, to hunt the few creatures that preceded them on land.

Together with other, younger fossils from the same geologic period, the ancient arachnids suggest that scorpions have looked and acted in much the same way ever since they first appeared on Earth.

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