Scotland, giant centipede, crocodile, other fossils brought back to life


Arthropleura

From The Scotsman:

The Scotland time forgot

JIM GILCHRIST

IT LEFT tracks now 300 million years old on Arran, it was the largest known invertebrate ever to roam the land, and it gives adventurous TV zoologist Nigel Marven a few bad moments when he visits the Scotland that time forgot in ITV’s new nature spectacular, Prehistoric Park.

Growing up to 10ft long, Arthropleura was a giant arthropod, somewhere between a millipede and a centipede which, during the Carboniferous Age, roamed the steaming forests of what is now central Scotland, the fallen remains of which would fossilise to provide, hundreds of millions of years later, our coal seams and our car fuel.

This ultimate creepy-crawly will be brought back to life in the new £6 million prime-time series, in which Marven takes a safari back through time to rescue prehistoric species from extinction and bring ’em back alive to stock a virtual Jurassic Park-style game reserve.

On screen at least, Marven ventures into Carboniferous Scotland to find and catch our long-lost Arthropleura.

“We filmed it in Florida but it’s based on fossils from Scotland,” he explains.

“If you go to the east coast of Arran and walk the rocks there, you find the tracks left by Arthropleura, where it walked across mud all these millions of years ago, and left these amazing trackways [which became fossilised] in the rock.”

In Prehistoric Park, Marven and his crew encounter spectacular beasts such as woolly mammoths, a 50ft Cretaceous crocodile and, of course, everyone’s favourite prehistoric nightmare, Tyrannosaurus rex.

He also features some smaller, less iconic, often bizarre creatures.

During his “visit” to Coal Age Scotland – courtesy of multimillion pound special effects by the same team who created the creatures in BBC’s ground-breaking Walking With Dinosaurs – he also meets Crassigyrinus scoticus – an early, fish-like predatory amphibian, known through fossil skulls found in Edinburgh and Cowdenbeath.

Scotland: Rhynie fossils.

Isle of Wight: video of dinosaur museum.

28 thoughts on “Scotland, giant centipede, crocodile, other fossils brought back to life

  1. Pingback: Over 100,000 visits on this blog | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  2. Pingback: Record visitors numbers to this blog in November. | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  3. Pingback: My first anniversary on WordPress | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  4. Pingback: Most popular posts on this blog in 2012 | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  5. Pingback: Liebster Award, thanks Morrighan! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  6. Pingback: Thanks for tagging this blog, Carolyn! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  7. Pingback: Very Inspiring Blogger Award, thanks Shaun! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  8. Pingback: Liebster Award, thank you Sue! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  9. Pingback: Ancient fossil named after Johnny Depp | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  10. Pingback: Shine On Award, thanks Shaun and Tazein! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  11. Pingback: Very Inspiring Blogger Award, thanks Tazein! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  12. Pingback: One Lovely Blog Award, thanks theseeker! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  13. Pingback: Shine On Award, thanks Ajaytao 2010! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  14. Pingback: Shine On Award, thanks Ajaytao 2010! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  15. Pingback: Some entomologists fear spiders | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  16. Pingback: Very Inspiring Blogger Award, thank you Babsje! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  17. Pingback: Which blog posts attracted most visits in 2013? | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  18. Pingback: British Labourite Corbyn and nuclear war, by comedian Mark Steel | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  19. Pingback: Sharks, 450 million years ago till today | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  20. Pingback: Invertebrate animals in Dutch gardens, new research | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  21. Pingback: Million visits milestone, my most visited blog posts | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  22. Pingback: 507-million-year-old fossil arthropod discovery | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  23. Pingback: Liebster Award, thanks Morrighan! | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  24. Pingback: Dinosaur age millipedes discovery | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  25. Pingback: Prehistoric giant millipedes, video | Dear Kitty. Some blog

  26. Pingback: World’s oldest millipede discovered in Scotland | Dear Kitty. Some blog

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.