About 330 million years ago, for questionable reasons, a water scorpion the size of a small human lurched out of the lake where it lived and lumbered slowly across the sand, dragging its tail behind.Technorati Tags: Paleontology, Scorpions, Scotland
Paleontologist Martin A. Whyte recently found the creature's tracks imprinted in a stretch of sandstone in Scotland. The trail includes the prints of six feet flanking the groove cut by the tail. Whyte estimates that the scorpion was about 5 feet, 3 inches long and about 3 1/2 feet wide.
I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Friday, December 16, 2005
On the Trail of a Giant Scorpion
From The Washington Post: