Pterygotus
Pterygotus was a giant sea scorpion that swam in ancient seas. The biggest ones were longer than a grown-up person is tall. It had huge toothy claws at the front and good eyes for spotting its dinner.
When did it live?
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Pterygotus compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
When its fossils were first studied in 1839, the scientist thought they came from a giant fish. He found his mistake five years later.
Quarry workers in Scotland and England who found the big fossils called them seraphims, a word for angels.
Its flat tail worked like a boat's rudder to steer while it swam.
Its walking legs were thin and small, so it probably could not walk on land.
A big one may have weighed about 30 kilograms, as much as a large dog.
Most asked questions about Pterygotus
?How big was Pterygotus?
The biggest kind was about 1,75 metres long, and the smallest about 50 centimetres.
?Was Pterygotus a scorpion?
Not a real one. It was a sea scorpion, an animal that lived in water and is related to spiders and scorpions.
?When did Pterygotus live?
Between about 430 and 360 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pterygotus
- Named by
- Agassiz, 1839
- Group
- Prehistoric giants
- Family
- Pterygotidae
- Classification
- Eurypterida > Pterygotidae
Where the facts come from
- Pterygotus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Ghedoghedo. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
Meganeura
Anomalocaris
Arthropleura
Hallucigenia
Opabinia
Megarachne