All articles tagged with #marine arthropods
A 500-million-year-old fossil of Mollisonia suggests that the brains of spiders and related arachnids may have evolved in the oceans before transitioning to land, challenging traditional views on their terrestrial origins and indicating a marine ancestry for these creatures.
After 140 years, scientists have uncovered the mystery of how giant Antarctic sea spiders care for their eggs, finding that they attach thousands of tiny eggs to the rocky seafloor. Unlike other sea spiders, the male giant Antarctic sea spiders exclusively care for their offspring, a behavior observed for the first time in the family Collossendeidae. Divers collected mating pairs and observed the male attaching the eggs to the tank floor, where they became covered in algae, potentially aiding in camouflage. This discovery sheds light on the reproductive strategies of these unique marine arthropods.