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Tangled web of spider evolution (science caucus)
BBC News ^ | Tuesday, 23 December 2008 | Paul Selden

Posted on 12/23/2008 5:08:52 PM PST by Soliton

Tangled web of spider evolution

The long Permarachne spinneret now known to be a tail (centre bottom) The species once described as the world's oldest spider is a more primitive version of the web-spinning modern spider, scientists have found.

The parts of the Attercopus spider's described as spinnerets - the appendages that allow web-spinning - were not spinnerets after all.

That means that the oldest "true" spider may have arrived 80m years later than previously thought.

The results appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and his colleagues first described Attercopus fossil remains in 1989.

Most of what the group initially found among fossil remains belonged to a group of extinct arachnids called trigonotarbids, but one bit seemed to have the modified hairs called spigots from which spider silk emerges, as well as the external, flexible appendages known as spinnerets that facilitate web-spinning.

That led the group to believe they were looking at the world's oldest known spider.

However, also present in the mix of material from the rock was a tail-like structure, which the researchers could not identify. What you've got is a jigsaw puzzle, with half the pieces and no picture on the box lid

The analysis stopped there until more material from the site was recovered and analysed. This time the researchers found a piece of Attercopus abdomen, with a tail attached.

The existence of such a tail was also relevant to the more recently discovered Permarachne genus, whose tail was originally described as an "elongated spinneret".

The finding prompted the team to return to their original samples, which on further study showed that the spinnerets they had earlier identified were in fact rolled-up pieces of cuticle, the animals' external skeletal material.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: evolution
It seems that Attercopus is a missing link, capable of producing silk but not of weaving it.

"The thing that had been called the oldest known spider we have now shown is in fact more primitive than a true spider," Professor Selden told BBC News.

The oldest "true spider", like the ones seen today, dates from the late Carboniferous period that ended about 300m years ago, though Professor Selden says that true spiders may have existed earlier but have not yet been discovered.

1 posted on 12/23/2008 5:08:52 PM PST by Soliton
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To: Soliton
Everyone knows "science" is just another name for Satanism.
2 posted on 12/23/2008 5:15:18 PM PST by CE2949BB (Fight.)
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To: CE2949BB
Everyone knows "science" is just another name for Satanism.

Satanism is a religion and has no place on a science thread. If you persist, I will report you to admin.

3 posted on 12/23/2008 5:18:51 PM PST by Soliton (This 2 shall pass)
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To: Soliton
Satanism is a religion and has no place on a science thread. If you persist, I will report you to admin.

It was a joke. Jeesh. Check my posting history, man. :P

Or the picture on my profile. That alone should give you an idea of what sort of person I am.

4 posted on 12/23/2008 5:20:20 PM PST by CE2949BB (Fight.)
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To: Soliton

Physics, cemistry, geology/Theology bump.


5 posted on 12/30/2008 12:20:48 PM PST by onedoug
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