It is a candidate for the largest bug to have ever lived – a nine-foot long millipede which scuttled across the land that would one day become Scotland.  

But despite finding traces of the creature’s shell, and the marks its spiny legs left behind, scientists have never been able to work out what the jumbo creep-crawly looked like.  

Now a chance discovery in France of two fossils have finally revealed what the creature’s face looked like.  

And the find has given clues on whether the many-legged monster may have snacked on meat or plants.  

Called Arthropleura, the giant arthropod lived in the carboniferous forests of the ancient world, 300 million years ago.  

Measuring a foot across, and growing almost ten feet in length, the extinct animal had up to 64 legs and its thought to be an ancestor to today’s slaters, millipedes and centipedes.  

Apart from its footprints, examples of which can be found on rocks in Fife and on Arran today, only the fossilised remains of its molted carapace, without a head, have been found.  

The giant Arthropleura millipedes could grow as big as cars.The giant Arthropleura millipedes could grow as big as cars. (Image: PA) However, thanks to the latest discovery, scientists have produced a mug shot after studying fossils of juveniles that were complete and very well preserved 

The giant bug’s head was revealed to be a round ‘bulb’ with two short bell-shaped antennae jutting from the front of its ‘face’,  

Surprisingly, the creatures eyes two protruded on stalks like a crab, raising questions about whether it could take to the water as well as the land.  

Its mouth was small, and adapted for grinding leaves and bark leading researchers to decide that Arthropleura ate rotting leaves and bark on the ancient, swampy, forest floor, according to the research published in Science Advances. 

The creatures were arthropods -- the group that today includes crabs, spiders and insects – with features of modern-day centipedes and millipedes.  

“We discovered that it had the body of a millipede, but head of a centipede,” said study co-author and paleobiologist Mickael Lheritier at the University Claude Bernard Lyon in Villeurbanne, France. 

An Arthropleura fossil found in EnglandAn Arthropleura fossil found in England (Image: PA) The largest Arthropleura may have been the biggest bugs to ever live, although there is still a debate. They may be a close second to an extinct giant sea scorpion. 

Researchers in Europe and North America have been collecting fragments and footprints of the huge bugs since the late 1800s. 

“We have been wanting to see what the head of this animal looked like for a really long time,” said James Lamsdell, a paleobiologist at West Virginia University, who was not involved in the study. 

To produce a model of the head, researchers first used CT scans to study fossil specimens of fully intact juveniles embedded in rocks found in a French coal field in the 1980s. 

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This technique allowed the researchers to scrutinize “hidden details like bits of the head that are still embedded in the rock” without marring the fossil, Lamsdell said. 

“When you chip away at rock, you don’t know what part of a delicate fossil may have been lost or damaged,” he said. 

The juvenile fossil specimens only measured about 2 inches (6 centimeters) and it’s possible they were a type of Arthropleura that didn’t grow to enormous sizes.  

But even if so, the researchers said they are close enough kin to provide a glimpse of what adults looked like when they were alive 300 million years ago.