Technically, every living thing on Earth can detect its origin in the sea. Some of these early organisms used to crawl on the ground, developed many different types of animals and insects – including scientists, for a long time, spiders and their relatives believed.
A new study published today Present biology The popular concept challenges that spiders emerged on the ground for the first time, instead it was suggested that these Archinids and their relatives originated and developed into the sea. Team reached this conclusion after examining the fossil central nervous system of the team MolisA long -term extinct animal from the Cambrian era (between 540 and 485 million years ago) is considered an ancestor of horseshoe crab. MolisaniaThe brain structure was closely mixed with modern spiders and their relatives, not descendants of their alleged crab.
“Search for an archaened brain in such an ancient creature Molisania It tells that today the major groups of living arthropods were already established, ” Nick StrusfeldThe lead writer of the study and neuroscientist at the University of Arizona told Gizmodo in an email. He said that it “puts a new view on the question: where did Arachnids develop earlier?”
By now, scientists had assumed that the modern spiders and their relatives developed on the ground based on the external characteristics of fossils such as Archnid found in sedimentary rocks formed on the ground. For the study, however, Strusfeld and his colleagues saw Inside A well -protected fossil MolisaniaWhich he used an optical microscope and other imaging techniques, which was to examine its cerebral arrangements in high detail.
The team exposed many similarities between modern spiders and MolisaniaBut the most striking characteristics belonged to the central nervous system of beings. Unlike insects, Archinda brain has a strange backward structure, with “the top of the next brain circuit that controls the movement of the feet,” Strusfeld explained. This is the one that makes spiders and their relatives “incredibly versatile in their movements”. As new research suggests, “Backward organization is enough to display (that) MolisaniaPeople living in the brain system are typed, “he said.
Other general features included external similarities in the team, such as claws such as joint limbs or pinners. He compared living and extinct arthropods (including arcinids) compared to 115 anatomical symptoms by raising a statistical analysis, which was kept, which was kept, which was kept Molisania For modern Archnids as a “sister”, authors explained in the study.
“This is very interesting, but we do not yet know how it is related to the huge array of Archnids other than spiders,” Paul CeldenA peliytologist and arconologist at the University of Kansas, who did not include Gizmodo in an email new work. “Clearly, their findings on phytolanetic (study of evolutionary history using visual signals) placement Molisania Are attractive, but only mark the onset of further investigation. ,
Perhaps premature to declare spiders as sea spawn, but the good news is that Strusfeld and their allies are already on the case.
“Most Cambrian fossils look very different from modern species, so it is really exciting when such external appearances reveal something inside them – a fossil brain and nervous system – which tells a different story,” Strasfeld said. “Arachnids are an important feature of our biosphere, and we should pay attention to what they contribute to our goodness.”
