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Evolution

Along came a sea spider

Nature volume 437, pages 1099–1101 (2005)Cite this article

An investigation of brain development in sea spiders provides hints about how the earliest arthropod head evolved. These observations are bound to provoke controversy in an already acrimonious field.

Obscure groups of animals have been making scientific waves lately1, and few are more obscure than the sea spiders, or pycnogonids. These marine, spider-like animals differ from other arthropods, such as the true spiders, crustaceans and insects, in many ways. Their bodies are so slender that the digestive systems and gonads are squeezed into their limbs; they possess a forward-pointing proboscis with a terminal mouth; and the males brood the eggs. Flanking their unique proboscis is a pair of pincer-bearing appendages known as chelifores, which it has long been assumed are related to the pincered fangs — chelicerae — of spiders.

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Figure 1: Testing the results of Maxmen et al.2 with Hox gene expression.
Figure 2: Possible evolutionary position of pycnogonids and interpretation of Maxmen and colleagues' results2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Uppsala, Norbyvägen 22, Uppsala, SE-752 36, Sweden

    Graham E. Budd

  2. Department of Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Maximilian J. Telford

Authors
  1. Graham E. Budd
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  2. Maximilian J. Telford
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Budd, G., Telford, M. Along came a sea spider. Nature 437, 1099–1101 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/4371099a

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