While the eurypterines were busy competing with fish, stylonurines moved inland, to brackish and freshwater ecosystems where there were fewer placoderms and less competition.
So, we probably have placoderms to thank for the nightmare fuel that followed, a family of giant eurypterines that persisted for nearly 40 million years.
But placoderms were also unique among armored fish in having a complete, mineralized internal skeleton – meaning they had both an endoskeleton, like you do, as well as an exoskeleton.
Others think that most placoderms specifically share common ancestors with ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes, but there are some placoderms that are more closely related to lobe-finned fishes than to other armored fish.
In the Late Devonian, giant armored jawed fish -- the placoderms -- would come to dominate these seas and force other ocean-dwellers to adapt, flee, or perish.
But despite their best efforts, these invertebrates couldn't keep up with placoderms, and eurypterines lost over 50 percent of their diversity within the first 10 million years of the Devonian.
But the eurypterines that did survive managed to stage a sort of evolutionary rally, getting bigger, faster, and stronger in the Devonian to cope with seas filled with placoderms that were doing the same.