MILLIPEDES as big as cars once roamed the north of England, a new study has found.

Cambridge University researchers have unearthed a 75cm fossil segment that suggests a creature that is 2.7 meters long and weighed about 50 kilograms.

It is the largest millipede fossil ever found and dates from the Carboniferous Period, about 326 million years ago — more than 100 million years before the Age of Dinosaurs.

The fossil reveals that the creature, known as Arthropleura, was the largest-known invertebrate animal of all time, larger than the ancient sea scorpions that were the previous record holders.

There are only two other known Arthropleura fossils, both from Germany, and both much smaller than the new specimen.

The specimen, found on a Northumberland beach about 64 kilometers north of Newcastle, is made up of multiple articulated exoskeleton segments, broadly similar in form to modern millipedes.

“It was an incredibly exciting find, but the fossil is so large it took four of us to carry it up the cliff face,” said Neil Davies, of Cambridge University.

Unlike the cool and wet weather associated with the region today, Northumberland had a more tropical climate in the Carboniferous Period, when Great Britain lay near the Equator.

Invertebrates and early amphibians lived off the scattered vegetation around a series of creeks and rivers.

The researchers say that to get to such a large size, Arthropleura must have had a high-nutrient diet.

“While we can’t know for sure what they ate, there were plenty of nutritious nuts and seeds available in the leaf litter at the time, and they may even have been predators that fed off other invertebrates and even small vertebrates such as amphibians,” Davies said.

The finding is detailed in the Journal of the Geological Society. (SD-Agencies)