A chelicera-bearing arthropod reveals the Cambrian origin of chelicerates

Posted by
  A chelicera-bearing arthropod reveals the Cambrian origin of chelicerates Abstract Chelicerata is a megadiverse (over 120,000 species) arthropod clade that includes familiar taxa of profound ecological and economic importance, such as scorpions, spiders and mites 1 . Extant chelicerates share a unique anatomical character, the chelicerae—feeding first appendages terminated by a simple pincer-like chela 2 . The fossil record of these primarily predatory animals spans almost 500 million years 3 , suggesting a likely yet undocumented origin during the Cambrian Explosion. Artiopods 4 , 5 , 6 , megacheirans 4 , 7 , 8 , 9 , habeliids 10 , 11 , 12 , 13  and mollisoniids 14 , 15  have been considered Cambrian stem- or crown-group chelicerates, but they all lack unequivocal chelicerae, leaving the emergence of chelicerae-bearing arthropods unclear. Here we describe  Megachelicerax cousteaui  gen. et sp. nov., a large soft-bodied arthropod from the middle Cambrian of Ut...

Review of the wolf spider genus Xerolycosa Dahl, 1908 from China (Araneae: Lycosidae)

Posted by

 




Review of the wolf spider genus Xerolycosa Dahl, 1908 from China (Araneae: Lycosidae)

Abstract

The wolf spider of genus Xerolycosa Dahl, 1908 from China is reviewed, including four species: X. miniata (C.L. Koch, 1834), X. mongolica (Schenkel, 1963), X. nemoralis (Westring, 1861) and X. xinjiangensis sp. nov. (male). Pardosa sinensis Yin, Peng, Kim et Wang, 1995 is newly synonymized with X. miniata (C.L. Koch, 1834). Morphological illustrations, photos, and descriptions of all species are given. SEM photos of male bulbs and photos of living specimens of X. nemoralis are also presented.

Wang, L. Y., Marusik, Y. M., Peng, X. J. & Zhang, Z. S. (2024f). Review of the wolf spider genus Xerolycosa Dahl, 1908 from China (Araneae: Lycosidae). Zootaxa 5463(1): 47-62. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5463.1.3