Scientists have discovered a 350-million-year-old fossilised scorpion in South Africa which is the oldest known land animal to have lived on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.
Dr Robert Gess, from the Evolution-ary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, discovered the fossilised scorpion from rocks near Grahamst-own in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. This unique specimenhas been named Gondwanascorpio emzants-iensis. Explaining his discovery, Dr Gess said that early life was confined to the sea and the process of terrestrialisation — the movement of life onto land — began during the Silurian Period roughly 420 million years ago.
The first wave of life to move out from water onto land consisted of plants, which gradually increased in size and complexity throughout the Devonian Period. This initial colonisation of land was closely followed by plant and debris-eating invertebrate animals such as primitive insects and millipedes.
By the end of the Silurian period about 416 million years ago, predatory invertebrates such as scorpions and spiders were feeding on the earlier colonists of land. By the Carboniferous period, early vertebrates — our four-legged ancestors — had in turn left the water and were feeding on the invertebrates.