During this age in Earth's history, between 541 million and 252 million years ago, arthropods (animals with exoskeletons such as insects, crustaceans, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs) were exploring the extremes of size, from tiny to huge.

If you were to take a swim in the Paleozoic oceans, you may have been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to find one of the most fearsome of these extinct arthropods: the sea scorpions, Eurypterida.

Sea scorpions include the largest marine predators to have ever arisen in the fossil record, including one species thought to have been more than 2.5 metres long (8 foot long), Jaekelopterus rhenaniae.

The size of the largest extinct sea scorpions, relative to a human.

And this uniqueness extends far into the fossil record, with sea scorpions being a case in point.

But the scientific record and study of Australian sea scorpions has been patchy.

Collating these specimens together in our most recent publication, we illustrate the Pterygotidae (the family of sea scorpions that reached 2.5 metres long) dominated the group's Australian fossil record.

Besides showcasing the largest number of Australian sea scorpions, our paper also outlines the overall lack of information on these animals.