New details are emerging about one of the largest bugs ever to live on planet Earth. This 9-foot-long giant insect with dozens of legs lived over 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous period, and now we know what its head looked like.
Up until now, scientists had no idea what the creature’s noggin resembled, and the new information is helping clear up its impact on its descendants. During the week of Oct. 6, research by scientists in North America and Europe led to a breakthrough. Most of the fossils of the insect were found headless shells, left behind after the creatures molted every time they grew larger.
Discoveries of these fossils date back to the 1800s, but it took modern technology to figure out the shape of the creature’s head.
Round, with two short antennae and two eyes that stuck outwards like a crab, the hundred-pound insect had a small mouth suited for grinding leaves and tree bark.
These traits led to a confusing mixture of a centipede and a millipede, leading to difficulty deciding what the insect’s head looked like. Now, by using CT scans, researchers were able to clear up the longstanding controversy.
There’s a lot left to learn about this ancient millipede, including what exactly it ate. Questions still stand on whether it walked on land, underwater or were amphibious as well.