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Walking trails of the giant terrestrial arthropod Arthropleura from the Upper Carboniferous of Kentucky

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Ronald L. Martino  and
Stephen F. Greb
Ronald L. Martino
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Marshall University, Huntington, WV 25755-2550,
Stephen F. Greb
Affiliation:
Kentucky Geological Survey, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0107,
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Extract

Arthropleurids were terrestrial, millipede-like arthropods, The genus Arthropleura Jordan from the Upper Carboniferous reached an enormous size of 2 m or more in length (Hahn et al., 1986), Occurrences are rare and the chronologie and paleogeographic distribution of Arthropleura coincides with the tropical Euramerican floral belt of the Carboniferous (Rolfe, 1969), The Carboniferous was a time of high atmospheric O2 levels (35%) compared to the current 21%, which may have favored the development of large terrestrial arthropods of this time (Dudley, 1998; Graham et al., 1997; Berner, 2001) . Body fossils of Arthropleura range from the Visean to Early Permian (Rolfe, 1969; Schneider and Barthel, 1997), while trackways have been reported from the Visean (Pearson, 1992) to Stephanian (Langiaux and Sotty, 1977; Castro, 1997; Fig. 1). Arthropleura fragments have been described from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Nova Scotia. Only four Arthropleura trackway sites have been described from North America (New Mexico, Kansas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick). Trackways provide information about size and locomotion that is not discernable from fragmentary body fossils .

Type
Paleontological Notes
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 140 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society

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