Fossil of Pincer-Wielding Crawler Reveals Origins of Spiders, Scorpions and Others
The Trilobites column over at the New York Times has a interesting story about the origin of chelicerates - spiders, scorpions, mites, horseshoe crabs, and others. Chelicerates are a diverse group of arthropods that consists of more than 120,000 known species. Member of this group are classified by having a pair of appendages called chelicerae. These appendages are adapted for various purposes like snatching prey, injecting venom, and even spinning silk.
