Spineless Giants Track Oceanic Revolutions
by Brian Switek
by Brian Switek
Today’s giant and colossal squids were hardly the first invertebrate giants to inhabit the seas. Squishy and shelly critters with sizes over a foot and a half long have evolved multiple times during the last 500 million years and are well-known among paleontologists who specialize in spineless species. Endoceras giganteum, a 451 million year old cephalopod that lived inside an elonged cone of a shell, could get to be about 15 feet long, and there are rumors of lost specimens 30 feet in length. The 404 million year old sea scorpion Jaekelopterus rhenaniae has been estimated to be over eight feet long, and the 465 million year old trilobite Hungioides stretched nearly three feet long. And that’s just a few of prehistory’s immense invertebrates.