Ewww! Scientist solve mystery of biggest ever bug's head

Beauty is in the eye of the bee-holder, especially when it comes to looking at one of the largest bugs ever to live.

The Arthropleura was similar to a millipede - but massive - growing up to the length of a small car!

Luckily for us, it scuttled about forests near the equator on its many legs (more than 60 of them) around 300 million years ago.

But its face remained a creepy-crawly mystery as fossils found were only of body skin, shed as it grew bigger. Until now, for the first time scientists have discovered a complete fossilised head.

What is an Arthropleura?

The Arthropleura belongs to the arthropod group. This includes insects, crustaceans - such as crabs - as well as spiders, scorpions and similar creatures.

The massive insect was thought to be one of the earliest millipedes, and fossils have been studied for more than 150 years.

But without a complete head, scientists couldn't decide whether it belonged to the millipede or centipede family or understand how it fitted in with evolutionary history. What a bugbear!

What did scientists discover about the Arthropleura?

The scans allowed a model of the head to be created - "Say fleas for the camera!"

The work, published in the Science Advances journal, described how two fossilised young Arthropleura were discovered in France.

Scans of the rock in which they were found revealed curved antennae, stalked eyes and mouthparts, known as mandibles, similar to those of centipedes.

From this information, researchers could create a model head.

Scientists found it had the body of a millipede, but the head was more like a centipede.

The plot thickens as stalked eyes are often found on species like crustaceans that spend time in water - not on centipedes or millipedes.

More research is continuing to learn more and find out what these ginormous bugs ate and how they breathed.