Giants, chilopod and anuran

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Joe Bernstein - 01 Sep 2004 05:57 GMT

Hi... Please excuse my showing up on your group and asking a
question right away, but I haven't been able to answer it with
library research and hope to have answers soon. If any of y'all
would care to oblige, at least.

I'm trying to find out the biggest known members of two different
groups, the centipedes and the frogs. They present different
problems:

CENTIPEDE

The answer appears to depend on just how truly centipede you want
your centipede to be.

My main source here is the <Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology>
article by Richard L. Hoffman, submitted July, 1965, and published
in 1969 in volume 2 of part R.

Modern centipedes reach 30 cm, Scolopendra gigantea. Apparently
a Scolopendra fossil is known but Hoffman isn't impressed.

Palaeozoic myriapods but not centipedes reach something like the
same length, Acantherpestes gigas.

Palaeozoic God-knows-whats reach 180 cm or so, Arthropleura.

So the problem is that there's a quote on about a trillion
creationist websites from one Kent Hovind, saying "In Germany
this [which?] summer they found an 8-1/2 foot centipede fossil."

So this is the only report I can find of this *anywhere* on the
Web, and I don't know where to look physically beyond the <Treatise>.
But if he was telling the truth, and it was recent, then the news
should be all over the Web. If it wasn't recent, what's up with
"this summer"? Or is he lying?

Anyway,

FROGS

Here it's much simpler. Normally palaeontologists like to brag
about the largest members of whatever group they're talking about,
as do enthusiasts or biologists when talking about that groups
fossil record. Nobody does this with frogs. Aren't there any
big fossil frogs? Or what? I'm not seeing sizes in the relevant
volume of the <Handbook of Palaeoherpetology>.

Grateful for any help.

Joe Bernstein

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Joe Bernstein, bookseller and writer joe@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>

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John Harshman - 01 Sep 2004 16:21 GMT

> Hi... Please excuse my showing up on your group and asking a
> question right away, but I haven't been able to answer it with
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> Palaeozoic God-knows-whats reach 180 cm or so, Arthropleura.

Arthropleura is a millipede. This has been pretty conclusively
demonstrated in a number of rigorous morphological analyses. Try this url:
http://www.life.umd.edu/entm/shultzlab/vtab/arthropleuridea.htm

There are plenty of other web references. Searching for "Heather M.
Wilson" and "Arthropleura" should find many of them.

> So the problem is that there's a quote on about a trillion
> creationist websites from one Kent Hovind, saying "In Germany
> this [which?] summer they found an 8-1/2 foot centipede fossil."

Considering that one of the biggest and most complete Arthropleura is
from Germany, it's a good bet that this is a garbled reference to it.

> So this is the only report I can find of this *anywhere* on the
> Web, and I don't know where to look physically beyond the <Treatise>.
> But if he was telling the truth, and it was recent, then the news
> should be all over the Web. If it wasn't recent, what's up with
> "this summer"? Or is he lying?

More likely unconcerned with facts rather than actually lying.
Centipedes, schmentipedes, what's the difference? We're saving souls here.

Can't help you with the frogs.

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Joe Bernstein - 09 Sep 2004 01:39 GMT

> > I'm trying to find out the biggest known members of two different
> > groups, the centipedes and the frogs. They present different
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> > The answer appears to depend on just how truly centipede you want
> > your centipede to be.

> > Modern centipedes reach 30 cm, Scolopendra gigantea. Apparently
> > a Scolopendra fossil is known but Hoffman isn't impressed.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> >
> > Palaeozoic God-knows-whats reach 180 cm or so, Arthropleura.

> Arthropleura is a millipede. This has been pretty conclusively
> demonstrated in a number of rigorous morphological analyses.

Thanks. I'll take your word for it, though... it seemed rather odd
for something so much older than any other known fossil centipedes
to also be one.

> There are plenty of other web references. Searching for "Heather M.
> Wilson" and "Arthropleura" should find many of them.

Well, yeah. Those are words that came up pretty frequently when
I was searching for "giant", "centipede", and "fossil" in various
permutations...

> Can't help you with the frogs.

Well, then, I'll simply note for the benefit of anyone else who
may someday look in Google on this topic, that the relevant volume
of the <Handbook of Paleoherpetology>, I think volume ?4 on
<Salientia>, gave strong reason to think that no frogs have yet
been found, fossil or otherwise, longer than about 16 inches from
nose to tail end. Although the author didn't do the usual largest-
specimen bragging, and was more than a little inconsistent about
supplying size information, she did note of one species that its
members were "extremely large", while for other species the strongest
statement was "large"; and "large" species whose sizes were given
were below 16 inches, while the "extremely large" was that length.
Again, what little I could derive from the pictures suggested that
the 16-incher was the champion. Um... 16 inches, let me think, a
bit over 40 cm.

So sorry this is so vague, if the Googler wants more details they
should contact me through this address, but anyway, it allowed me
to conclude, at least tentatively, that there had never been truly
giant toads, which was sorta the point.

And thanks for the information about Arthropleura, John Harshman. I
had already spent fruitless, well, probably more than one hour,
looking for some sort of plausible source for the creationist's
assertions, without any luck, because I had no way of knowing which
possible datum or data (classification, size, date, location) he had
gotten wrong.

Joe Bernstein

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Joe Bernstein, bookseller and writer joe@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>

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Stelios Zacharias - 09 Sep 2004 09:02 GMT

>So the problem is that there's a quote on about a trillion
>creationist websites from one Kent Hovind, saying "In Germany
>this [which?] summer they found an 8-1/2 foot centipede fossil."

Not wanting to suggest that the good Doctor may have made such a
NASAesque blunder, but are we sure that he's got his units right?

Would 8.5 inches make more sense (missing ' character -
stonehenge reference)? Also check whether he may have multiplied
by 2.54 rather than divided from a metric count of centipede
centimeters?

Stelios

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Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / September 2004

Giants, chilopod and anuran