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Illustration of the holotype specimen of "Pterygotus rhenaniae", a pretelson, by Otto Jaekel, 1914. Jaekelopterus was originally described as a species of Pterygotus, P. rhenaniae, in 1914 by German palaeontologist Otto Jaekel based on an isolated fossil pretelson (the segment directly preceding the telson) he received that had been discovered at Alken in Lower Devonian deposits of the ...
If the proportions between body length and chelicerae match those of its closest relatives, where the ratio between claw size and body length is relatively consistent, the specimen of Jaekelopterus that possessed the chelicera in question would have measured between 233 and 259 centimeters (7.64 and 8.50 ft), an average 2.5 meters (8.2 ft), in ...
Reconstruction of Jaekelopterus.. Pterygotid eurypterids, which occur in strata ranging from Late Silurian to Late Devonian in age, [1] [2] [3] ranged in size from quite small animals, such as Acutiramus floweri at 20 cm (7.9 in), to the largest known arthropods to have ever lived.
Pterygotioids ranged in size from small eurypterids, the smallest being Hughmilleria wangi at just 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in length, to the largest arthropods to ever live, the largest being Jaekelopterus rhenaniae which might have reached lengths of 2.6 metres (8.5 ft). [3] [4]
The largest arthropods to have ever existed were eurypterids. The largest known species (Jaekelopterus rhenaniae) reached up to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) in length, about the size of a crocodile. [8] Species of Eurypterus, however, were much smaller. E. remipes are usually between 13 and 20 cm (5 and 8 in) in length.
The earliest eurypterid reconstruction; a figure of Eurypterus remipes by James E. De Kay (1825).. This timeline of eurypterid research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of eurypterids, a group of extinct aquatic arthropods closely related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs that lived during the ...
Like its close relative Jaekelopterus, Pterygotus was a large and active predator noted for its robust and enlarged cheliceral claws that would have allowed it to puncture and grasp prey and a visual acuity (clarity of vision) comparable to that of modern predatory arthropods.
Though longer eurypterids are known from the eurypterine suborder, notably the largest known arthropod of all time, Jaekelopterus, at 230–260 centimetres (7.5–8.5 ft), hibbertopterids were far bulkier than any of the largest eurypterine eurypterids and as such likely represent the overall heaviest animals in the order.