"Monster Spider" - Ying's Chimera spider provides key evidence for the origin and evolution of spiders.

Recently, two international scientific research teams, Wang Bo and Huang Diying, researchers at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, independently studied the "monster spider" known as Chimerarachne yingi, which was preserved in the amber of Cretaceous Burma 100 million years ago, providing key evidence for understanding the origin and evolution of spiders.
research was published on February 6inin in back-to-back papers, in the journal Nature-Ecology and Evolution.
spider is one of the most common animals in nature, belongs to the arthropod spider, is an extremely rich species of predatory animals, plays an important role in the terrestrial ecosystem.
because early spider fossils are rare, the current study has little understanding of the origin and early evolution history of spiders.
in the study, researchers studied the specimen in detail using optical microscopes, laser confocal microscopes and high-resolution X-ray tomography systems, and established a new group, the Chitmera spider, which they believe most likely belongto to the original group of spiders.
specimens are close to 3 mm in length, divided into precursor (chest) and hind body (abdominal), connected by a narrow waist (abdominal handle), with mid-eye and side eye, abdominal and back armor are obvious and completely branched, front and rear side spinners Both are well developed, the outer spinner each section has a silk gland, the step foot has a spider feature, which has a number of large hair and fine hair, the end of the toothed side claws, middle claws and prominent paw stomp.
the specimen is unique in that it has a slender tail whisker, more than 1.5 times the length of the body, more than 70 knots, each with a thin ring of hair. the ancestors of
's Chimera spider scan back in the mud basin period in New York, USA (about 359-419 million years ago) fossilized fossil "Atcopus."
they all have spider-specific cessis and long-tailed whiskers, and scientists have built a spider-shaped extinction spectre for them, the Ural scounx. the discovery of chimera spiders in
makes up for an important scene in the evolution of spiders, namely, the missing loop between Ural spiders and modern spiders, which have both the unique slender tails of Ural spiders and the almost identical multi-section altrate spinning and silk glands of modern section-plate spiders.
through the detailed understanding of the structure of the spider in amber, the study reinterpreted the systematic development of the spider-shaped outline, and concluded that the spider's vision is more primitive than the spider-shaped (whip scorpion), no whip (whip spider), crack shield, etc., and revealed that the swashaving and special mustes are not very progressive features, while the original spider's slender tail is gradually degraded, still remains in the hip-spheum.
the fossils of the Chimera spider present the key features of the spider's base dry group, providing key evidence for understanding the evolution of spider swasilet, spinners and tentacles.
has long argued that key fossils of spider origin should be found in the charcoal age or older formations, and the emergence of the fossils challenges the existing definition of spiders.
whether the Chimera spider is attributed to the spider or a separate "eye" appears, more fossils and further research are needed.
the research was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
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