A forceful predator, that hunted at night
Bad vision is a problem, even if you’re a huge sea scorpion.
You’re a domineering predator flushing the waters to find any food.
And also due to an examination of their eye, scientists discovered, that they had to follow weaker and smaller animals they meet at night.
Here’s the fate of the biggest of arthropod that ever lived.
Some new information was published about the animal’s habits, abilities and their role.
The title of the paper was: “What big eyes you have. The ecological role of a big pterygotid eurypterids.”
“We thought, that these animals are very big predators dominating the waters, but they must fond their prey in order to see it.”
These animals could grow more than two meters long and they strolled shallow for 35 million years.
Because of their appearance, scientists have long thought these animals to be horrible predators.
But the research by Richard Laub of the Buffalo Museum of Science one more prove, that these animals claws couldn’t harm armoured prey. And this confirms the idea, that they weren’t such forceful predators.
If their claws couldn’t harm the armoured preys, they may have preyed on weak preys.
A scientist Victoria McCoy developed a new analysis for understanding the characteristics of the sea scorpions’ eyes.
She also used a technology backscattered electrons on a scanning electron microscope to examine eye lenses without damaging the fossil.
They also compared the results with a modern-day species.
Of course it couldn’t be precise, but it reveals a basic vision level of the sea scorpions.
It was also proved, that their vision worsened as they grew larger.
It couldn’t be the same for other high-level predators, and maybe this animal wasn’t a big predator at all.
It may have been a scavenger hunting at night.
This could be true for other species as well.
“It will be also useful with other predators eyesight examination”.
