A giant predator was stalking what is now Britain roughly 415 million years ago, long before forests spread and before the ancestors of reptiles, birds, and mammals had fully taken to land. Its identity has been argued over for more than a century. Now researchers say the fossil fragments belong to a scorpion, and not just any scorpion, but the largest one yet known. The animal, Praearcturus gigas, is estimated to have exceeded a meter in length. Its pincers alone reached about 16 centimeters, far larger than those of any living scorpion. The new analysis, published in Palaeontology, also folds two other fossil species into the same animal, strengthening the case that these scattered remains all belonged to one outsized predator from Early Devonian England and Wales. That matters because Praearcturus lived at a very different moment in Earth’s history than the giant arthropods people usually picture. The discovery of Eramoscorpius (pictured) finally provided the fossil evidence to prove Praearcturus was a scorpion after all. (CREDIT: Palaeontology) Before forests, before vertebrates, a giant hunter When …