The discovery of a 326m-year-old fossil has led experts to reveal that giant millipedes were once hunted across northern England.
The largest fossil of a giant millipede was found by afluke on a Northumberland beach at Howick, after a section of cliff fell on to the shore.
The creature, known as Arthropleura, must have been able to find a plant diet that was rich in vitamins and minerals.
The Cambridge University published an illustration of what arthropod looked like. The picture was taken by JW Schneider/TU Bergakademie Freiberg.
The specimen is made up of multiple articulated segments. It is the oldest and largest fossil to have been discovered.
The experts think the fossil is a section of the creature's body that was lost near the riverbed.
Scientists think the entire body could have weighed 50 kilogram and been about 75 cm long.
The remains of the creature are more than 100m years old.
Great Britain was near the equator at the time.
A former PhD student spotted it in a large block of sandstone that had fallen from the cliff while walking along the coast in January of last year.
Dr Neil Davies, the lead author of a paper on the fossil, said it was a complete fluke. One of our former PhD students spotted the fossil when he was walking by the boulder that had fallen.
Natural England and the Howick Estate gave permission for the fossil to be removed and taken to Cambridge for analysis.
Four people had to carry it.
There were plenty of nuts and seeds available in the leaf litter at the time, and they may have been predators that fed off other invertebrates and even small vertebrates.
The creatures crawled around the equator for about 45m years, before they died out due to global warming or the rise of reptiles.
In the new year, the fossil will be on display at Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum.
The results are reported in a journal.
