THE MIDDLE LANE
Car-sized millipedes? Don’t believe everything you read, says TGTV script writer Sam Philip
“MILLIPEDES AS BIG AS CARS ONCE ROAMED NORTH ENGLAND!” roared the newspaper headline
Yes in seismic news for fans of a millipedes and b northern beach holidays a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge recently stumbled upon a huge fossil on Northumberland’s Howick Beach Further investigation revealed this be to a section of the largest ever example of a giant prehistoric carnivorous millipede named Arthropleura This vast arthropod was quickly dubbed “the biggest bug ever to exist” and “as big as a car” To which of course the only appropriate obvious response is as big as which car exactly?
Prepare for some number crunching The fossilised section of Arthropleura henceforth known as Arthur obviously measured cm in length allowing the Cambridge researchers to deduce that he clocked a precise cm from front to rear bumper Which while unquestionably chonky for a millipede makes Arthur only half the length of a BMW X and despite being a nightmarish fangfaced wormbeast only half as upsetting to look at
True there are smaller cars than the X But even against less vast opponents Arthur still comes up short nearly a metre stumpier than a new Fiat cm less than a Toyota iQ cm
“THE FOSSILISED SECTION OF ARTHROPLEURA MEASURED HALF THE LENGTH OF A BMW X7”
less than a Smart Fortwo OK he was fractionally longer than a Renault Twizy making him “as big as a car” in the same way that a Pomeranian is as big as a wolf
Of course there’s more to size than length And when you factor in Arthur’s other dimensions it turns out yeah still nowhere near car sized sorry mate At cm wide Arthur was less than half the breadth of a Twizy and barely quarter the width of that X Which means we can say with some scientific authority that while Arthropleura would have been a cinch to slot through even the narrowest of urban width restrictors two abreast seating would be have been quite a challenge not least because it was a bloodthirsty predator and thus likely to messily devour you before you had the chance to assess its handling characteristics
Kerbweight? No better I’m afraid At just kg it’s unclear whether dry or with fluids Arthur was hardly a tenth the weight of a Caterham Seven though coincidentally boasted a similar level of technological sophistication You’d have to pile no fewer than Arthropleuras on the scales to balance out just one BMW X
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that being pursued across a northern beach by a kg carnivorous millipede would be anything less than terrifying the Cambridge researchers didn’t specify Arthur’s acceleration or top speed figures but with all those legs you have to assume he’ll have decent traction even in slippery conditions but there’s no getting away from the fact that Arthropleura wasn’t so much “as big as a car” more “as big as a really big millipede” Always happy to help