ancient scorpions

ornata

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
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Jun 4, 2007
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207
hello

does anyone have any idea of which scorpion family that is the oldest one!?
(thinking about that scorpions have been around for about 3-400 million years)

Do you think we have any scorpion species/genus that are/is a so called "living fossil"?
 

marcelo_987

Arachnosquire
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May 4, 2006
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As far as I know one of the first scorpions lived in the water and it was about 3 feet long. They hunted our ancestors, which were this little armor plated fishes. That was more than 300 million years ago, it was more like 1 billion years ago. As far as the oldest living genus/species I don't know.
 

Mr. Mordax

Arachnoking
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Oct 22, 2006
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As far as I know one of the first scorpions lived in the water and it was about 3 feet long. They hunted our ancestors, which were this little armor plated fishes. That was more than 300 million years ago, it was more like 1 billion years ago. As far as the oldest living genus/species I don't know.
Those were called sea-scorpions, there's some debate as to whether or not they're related to modern scorpions, and they only lived around half a billion years ago. One billion years ago was when multicellular stuff started showing up.

Sorry, I'm a science nazi on the days I'm not a grammar nazi.
 

~Abyss~

Arachnoking
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Mar 28, 2006
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Actually I saw a documantary of some more recent marine scorpions that were basically the same as modern scorpions only a lot bigger. They had gills instead of the modern book lungs.
 

harrypei

Arachnoknight
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Oct 30, 2006
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I believe they said that the first animal to leave the ocean and walk on to the land was a scorpion. or a sea-scorpion ;)
 

Mark Newton

Arachnobaron
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Mar 9, 2007
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Do you think we have any scorpion species/genus that are/is a so called "living fossil"?
So...you are talking about extant families etc...The Buthidae are considered to have the most plesiomorphic character state as far as I know...
 

Michiel

Arachnoking
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May 22, 2006
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I believe the genus Microtityus is example of what Mark pointed out. Just read the publication of M.kovariki...............
 
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