{"id":1257,"date":"2024-12-01T19:58:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T16:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2025-11-20T19:39:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:39:00","slug":"eight-meter-long-centipedes-and-dragonflies-with-a-meter-long-wingspan-are-the-realities-of-the-paleozoic-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/2024\/12\/01\/eight-meter-long-centipedes-and-dragonflies-with-a-meter-long-wingspan-are-the-realities-of-the-paleozoic-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight-meter-long centipedes and dragonflies with a meter-long wingspan are the realities of the Paleozoic era"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Paleozoic Era (541\u2013252 million years ago), there was enough atmospheric oxygen to support giant superbugs and insects. For example, the largest giant dragonfly had a wingspan of up to 28 inches (71 cm). The giant centipede could reach eight feet in length (8.5 meters), making it the largest known invertebrate in history.<\/p>\n

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Picture a giant centipede crawling across the jungle floor with a long body eight feet long. Now picture a huge dragonfly that can stretch its wings to an incredible half a meter across. This may have been what life was like in the oxygen-rich environments of the early Paleozoic Era (541 million years ago \u2013 252 million years ago), featuring the largest creepy crawlies the Earth has ever known.<\/p>\n

Along with the lack of predatory birds, an atmosphere with a potential oxygen concentration of up to 35 percent (compared to 21 percent on modern Earth) allowed these giant insects and land arthropods to grow to enormous sizes both in the air and on the ground.<\/p>\n

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\nArthropleura Armata<\/em><\/p>\n

Arthropods are a group of invertebrates that include insects, centipedes, and spiders; they collect oxygen through openings in their bodies called spiracles, which branch into a network of tubes that disperse the gas throughout their bodies. The high concentration of oxygen allowed arthropods to continue to grow because they could easily absorb the gas as they grew larger.<\/p>\n\n

Researchers believe that the insect population boom began in the early Paleozoic era, from the Cambrian to the Silurian periods. But giant insects actually began to evolve in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods more than 300 million years ago, when the Earth had many more trees and oxygen-producing plants.<\/p>\n

At the time, fossils show that the giant dragonfly Meganeura Monyi had a wingspan of over 0.5 meters and fed on smaller insects. Probably living in open areas where its wings could stretch, its growing huge eyes helped it \u201cspot\u201d its prey and then use its spiny legs to catch it.<\/p>\n