Arthropleura



Arthropleura (Greek for jointed ribs) is a genus of extinct millipede arthropods that lived in what is now northeastern North America and Scotland around 315 to 299 million years ago, during the late Carboniferous Period. The larger species of the genus are the largest known land invertebrates of all time, and would have had few, if any, predators.

Arthropleura ranged in length from A. moyseyi, which was only about 0.3 meters long, to A. armata which was 2.5 meters long.Arthropleura was able to grow larger than modern arthropods, partly because of the greater partial pressure of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere at that time and because of the lack of large terrestrial vertebrate predators. The flattened body of Arthropleura is composed of approximately 30 jointed segments, each of which was covered by two side plates and one center plate. The ratio of pairs of legs to body segments was approximately 8:6, similar to some present-day millipedes.