Spiders had ancient big-clawed relatives

The ancient world was full of strange animals that have gone extinct, such as a group of marine species with claw-like structures emerging from their heads. A new study suggests that these creatures were related to spiders and scorpions.

Researchers discovered the fossilized remains of a species in southwest China that provides new insights into the evolution of animals in the modern era, scientists said. They report their findings in the journal Nature.

Scientists believe that the creature — 1 inch long, and with two pairs of eyes — lived 520 million years ago and that it crawled or swam in the ocean. They were able to reconstruct the creature’s nervous system to gain insights about its evolutionary relationships to animals familiar to us.

“For the first time, we are able to use fossilised neural anatomy to sort out how fossil animals are related to animals today,” study co-author Xiaoya Ma of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum in London wrote in an e-mail.

This creature belongs to the Alalcomenaeus genus, and its place in the animal kingdom lies in “a group of weird extinct animals” called the “megacheiran” or “great appendage” arthropods, Ma said.

The species of the Alalcomenaeus group had elongated, segmented bodies with about 12 pairs of appendages they used for swimming or crawling. They also had a pair of long, scissor-like head claws, most likely for grabbing or sensing.

Scientists say the reconstruction of the new creature’s nervous system is the most complete for an arthropod living at that time, in the Cambrian geological period.

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