The biggest bug ever

British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

In fact the claw once belonged to an 2.5 meter (8 foot) long sea scorpion. The University of Bristol scientists uncovered the claw near Prum, Germany. It's approximately 400 million years old.

Paleontologist Simon Braddy said the sea scorpions also were cannibals that fought and ate one other, so it helped to be as big as they could be.

"The competition between this scorpion and its prey was probably like a nuclear standoff, an effort to have the biggest weapon," Braddy said. "Hundreds of millions of years ago, these sea scorpions had the upper hand over vertebrates - backboned animals like ourselves."

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