The Freakiest of October CARBONIFEROUS Arthropleura

 Arthropleura is a contender for the biggest arthropod of all time,‭ ‬and like with other arthropods of the Carboniferous period,‭ ‬this gigantism has been attributed to the greater abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere of this time.‭ ‬Many fossilised track‭ ‬ways have also been preserved with some even showing Arthropleura moving around trees as it made its way through the Carboniferous forests.‭
       Because the mouth of Arthropleura has never been recovered it is has been difficult to say with certainty if it was a herbivore or carnivore.‭ ‬Instead scientists have had to look at the digestive tract and coprolites of this animal,‭ ‬which have been found to contain spores from plants like ferns,‭ ‬something that is not seen in a carnivorous animal suggesting it was a herbivore.
       Arthropleura disappears from the fossil record during the early Permian when the climate dried and the lush forests were replaced with arid and desert like environments.‭ ‬Not only did the oxygen content become reduced from the lack of oxygen producing vegetation,‭ ‬the dry conditions would not have suited Arthropleura because of its crustacean ancestry.‭ ‬Crustaceans as a whole need moist conditions to stop themselves from drying out which is why today you either see them in aquatic environments,‭ ‬or the shaded areas of the ground such as amongst the leaf litter where the ground cannot get dried out by the sun.