Last month’s challenge took some backbone in order to make a guess. The correct answer was given a few times within the first day of the blog going up. However, Isotelus was the first person to answer correctly.
Genus Eurypterus. I’m obviously not a Eurypterid worker, so the only species I know are remipes and lacustris, and I don’t know the differences between the two. Um. E. remipes, because remipes is everywhere lol. Science!
This critter is Eurypterus remipes, the first invertebrate to appear on Know Your Bones.
E. remipes lived during the late Silurian 432 to 418 million years ago and are found in North America, parts of Asia and Europe, which made up one continent. They had an average length of 13 to 23 cm. E. remipes were a shallow marine animal that lived near the coast and unable to travel the open ocean. E. remipes had one pair of swimming appendages that they would have used to travel longer distances, but would have spent most of their time walking across the sea floor. They most likely were generalists, feeding on whatever they could find.
E. remipes is one of the most abundant fossils in the world. They are mostly found as disarticulated exoskeleton remains. Whole specimens are extremely rare. E. remipes appears to have been able to walk on land based on a few anatomical structures. However, if that is the case, it probably only spent a limited amount of time out of water, much like modern horseshoe crabs.
Moving on to this month’s challenge:
(Taken at the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science)
Good luck.