A Late Carboniferous fossil scorpion from the Piesberg, near Osnabrück, Germany

J A Dunlop,H Steur,C Brauckmann

doi:10.5194/fr-11-25-2008

Abstract

A new fossil scorpion – only the second from the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) of western Germany – is described from the Westphalian D of the Piesberg near Osnabrück, Germany. This slender and rather gracile specimen is very closely related to the stratigraphically contemporary Eoscorpius carbonarius Meek & Worthern, 1868 from Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA and is here assigned to E. cf. carbonarius. A precise placement is hindered by the need for revision of the late Carboniferous scorpion fauna. doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mmng.200700010" target="_blank">10.1002/mmng.200700010</a>

Highlights

The Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Coal Measures of Europe and North America have yielded nearly forty accepted scorpion species (Fet et al 2000); over a third of the known fossil fauna
A precise placement is hindered by the need for revision of the late Carboniferous scorpion fauna
On the face of it, scorpions would appear to be one of the most diverse groups found within these Coal Measures environments

Summary

Introduction

The Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Coal Measures of Europe and North America have yielded nearly forty accepted scorpion species (Fet et al 2000); over a third of the known fossil fauna. The Early Carboniferous of the Erzgebirge Basin in Saxony has yielded Eoscorpius bornaensis Sterzel, 1918 This widely overlooked name was not picked up in important summaries (Petrunkevitch 1953; Kjellesvig-Waering 1986) or catalogues (Fet et al 2000), but the holotype – held in the Chemnitz Museum – was mentioned by Nindel (1955) and Brauckmann (1982), and refigured by Ræßler & Schneider We describe a new and largely complete specimen of a scorpion from the Coal Measures of the Piesberg, near Osnabrçck in Lower Saxony (Figs 1–2). The new specimen described here (Figs 3–4) originates from the Piesberg (see below), near Osnabrçck, Lower Saxony, Germany It was collected by Mrs Adri Delcour (Enschede, The Netherlands) and is presently held in her private collection. The reconstruction (Fig. 5) derives some details, of the legs, from published drawings of other Eoscorpius material – principally those in Kjellesvig-Waering (1986) – as well as comparisons with extant species

Geological setting

Morphological interpretation

Systematic palaeontology