Talk:Arachnid

Evolution
Taking out the evolution part you retards, it was proven false by Shane Maxey, the great scientist of Maryland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.228.179.68 (talk) 04:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * So there is now no evolution section on arachnids? This is silly. Please add an evolution section. Fig (talk) 10:39, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Searchable and readable
My additions are a laywoman's attempt to organize what I'm finding on the web as I fill in basic articles on the arachnids, and to make it searchable and readable for other laymen. Experts, please correct me where I have erred! Catherine
 * The only thing I have issues with is that I thought they were all poisonous, every single one. This might be an urban legend though... Tuf-Kat

Pseudoscorpiones
Shouldn't it be "pseudoscorpions"?69.133.143.122 00:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Red vs. pink
What's going on with this red X pink futile struggle? Is this guy doing it on purpose to vandalize or he is just unaware of the color convention of the taxoboxes? Vae victis 22:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

cephalothorax
We should be cautious about phrases such as cephalothorax is formed by fusion of a cephalon plus thorax. There is no evidence that Chelicerate ancestors ever had a thorax. There is no post-cephalic tagmosis reported in the Arachnata. We should rather say something like: the cftx is formed by the anteriormost trunk segments fused to the head and serves to sensory and locomotory functions. Vae victis 01:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

8 legs?
At least mites, daddy longlegs, uropygids and some spiders are not poisonous (that's what I found browsing around). Should it be added that almost all arachnids have 8 legs? The only exception I found is that occassionally the front-most pair is converted to sensory function.

Aragorn2 15:43, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nymph link
The link nymphs connects to the mythological nymph rather than biological one. I'd fix it, but I don't know how. :/ &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.19.80.47 (talk • contribs) 00:11, 3 September 2004.
 * Thanks for the note, it's fixed now. Rl 18:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

IDS
I removed this section from the article:
 * ArachNIDS (Advanced Reference Archive of Current Heuristics for Network Intrusion Detection Systems)

Developed by Max Vision's White Hats, ArachNIDS is an attack profile database used to dynamically create signatures which are compatible with various Network IDS. I'm not sure whether to consider it spam. Maybe it's useful for something, but it certainly does not make a good first paragraph for this article. Rl 18:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I also perceive this as spam. Vae victis 01:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Images provided
I'm removing the template because I've added images from other articles. You may want to add other images as the article gets longer and has more space for them. delldot | talk 18:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Usually lay eggs?
Does this mean there are some arachnids that do not lay eggs, and rather use some other mechanism? Which are they? They sound interesting to me... -JC 02:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * AFAIK, in some arachnids, the eggs hatch inside the mother (sometimes killing the mother in the process) Jalwikip 10:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ethymology of 'Arachnids'
The article says 'Arachnids are named after the mythological figure Arachne.' However, the linked article on Arachne says 'Arachne's name simply means "spider" (αράχνη)'. So I find it much more likely the name of the class is derived from the Greek word for spider. Can anyone please confirm? I'd like to change it, but I must be sure. Jalwikip 11:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I won't go as far as remove the Arachne link, but I added her name means "spider". Jalwikip (talk) 15:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistency between Orders and phylogeny?
Hi there,

I was reading this article today - very nicely written by the way - and I noticed several inconsistencies that I thought I would point out and let someone else correct (since this is not my article I didn't want to do it). I hope I'm not being to forward or nasty - I'm only trying to improve the article.

The systematics are listed like this:
 * 1) 2 Systematics

* 2.1 Acarina * 2.2 Amblypygi * 2.3 Araneae * 2.4 Haptopoda * 2.5 Opiliones * 2.6 Palpigradi * 2.7 Phalangiotarbida * 2.8 Pseudoscorpions * 2.9 Ricinulei * 2.10 Schizomida * 2.11 Scorpions * 2.12 Solifugae * 2.13 Trigonotarbida * 2.14 Uropygi

However, the phylogenetic tree looks like this: †Trilobita Xiphosura Eurypterida Arachnida Scorpiones Opiliones Pseudoscorpiones Solifugae Acari Palpigradi Pycnogonida †Trigonotarbida Ricinulei Araneae Amblypygi Uropygi Schizomida

Thus, by my reckoning (and assuming the † is a reference to extinct), the following corrections should be made: 1) Acarina should be made consistent with Acari - no preference which. 2) Haptopoda needs a place on the phylogenetic tree. 3) Phalangiotarbi needs a place on the phylogenetic tree. 4) Trilobita probably deserves it's own section in the main article given it's distinct order. 5) Xiphosura, due to it's position in the phylogenetic tree, probably also deserves it's own section in the main article. 6) Eurypterida, due to it's position in the phylogenetic tree, probably also deserves it's own section in the main article. 7) Eurypterida probably should be indicated as extinct with the †, based on the article it is linked to.

Cheers, and thanks for taking the time to write such a great article.

Matt Mbeyers 19:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Limb regerenation
I'm not sure if this is common to all arachnids, or only certain species, but apparently young spiders can regenerate lost limbs. This seems to be a notable feature. siℓℓy rabbit (  talk  ) 05:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Useful sources
Hi, I've just made serious revisions to Chelicerate (start-class, I'll submit it for GA review when I've written a lead) and Spider (threatened with loss of its GA status due to lack of refs). Arachnid is in better shape than the other 2 were (B-class) but takes a different approach from the one that comes naturally to me, so I'm reluctant to charge in (my main interest is paleontology, so body plan, fossil record and phylogeny tend to be my focus). However I think Chelicerate and Spider have some content and refs that might be useful in Arachnid - feel free to copy and adapt. -- Philcha (talk) 11:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Arachnophobia
I think that there should be either a small section or just a mention of arachnophobia, being that it is the most common phobia in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.41.125.72 (talk) 07:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

10 legs
Similar how the 8 leg comment says "occasionally the front-most pair is converted to sensory function." Occasionally other organs can grow large enough to look like an extra pair of legs too, like in Solifugae. Considering there's a thousand described species, I think it's worth an extra sentence, if you disagree, feel free to revert me.. Vespine (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I've put the sentence in, but I'm not sure if it reads a little clunky. If someone wants to have a crack at smoothing it out a bit, please go ahead. Vespine (talk) 23:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A leg is typically defined by its function, not its appearance. Plenty of spiders look like they have 10 legs (tarantulas), but they are still described as having 8 legs. Many jumping spiders use their front legs for sensory functions, but they still walk with them as well. Unless you know of a reliable source that says otherwise, I would prefer to stick with the 8 leg wording. Kaldari (talk) 23:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

GA
It seems to me that this article is ready for a GA review; it looks like a "good article" to me. After reviewing the nomination procedure, I chickened out - but still recommend. ~E 74.60.29.141 (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Lamarck 1801
How comes the english Wikipedia credits Lamarck 1801 instead of Cuvier 1812? Are there any sources for that? I would go rather with something like this Animal Biodiversity, Magnolia press 2011. In many other sites: (French, German,... Wikipedia, WoRMS, Cuvier is mentioned. What am i missing here? If there are valid reasons why Lamarck has to be preferred, then Wikipedia sites in other languages could go with that as well. Or just mention both of them. Though, i found that source which suggests Lamarck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilippMontazem (talk • contribs) 16:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Problems with the Systematics section
I have serious concerns about the Systematics section of the article. I'm not quite sure at present how to fix these problems; I'm hoping that editors who worked on this article and have more expertise than I do are watching this talk page. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no source given for the classification used at the start. A range of different classifications will be found in the current literature: whose is this one?
 * The phylogenetic tree says "after Giribet et al. 2002", but there's no actual reference. If this paper is, then:
 * The paper contains more than one tree.
 * The one in the article isn't the one chosen by others who used Giribet et al. (2002) as a source, including which has Giribet as a co-author. The difference isn't trivial: the tree in the article shows a monophyletic Acari, but the usual summary of Giribet et al. (2002) shows that Acariformes and Parasitiformes are far apart.
 * The most recent paper on the phylogeny of the Arachnida is Sharma et al. (2014) cited above. It concludes that "Topological conflict at the base of Arachnida is retained among gene trees across data sets, regardless of evolutionary rate or minimization of missing data." Thus there is no overall current consensus as to the phylogeny of Arachnida, let alone the one shown.

All vs Almost All, and being consistent
Did anybody else notice that the second sentence says "All arachnids have eight legs," while the very first sentence of the first section (anatomy) starts off with "Almost all adult arachnids have eight legs." Even though the second sentence of the article comes with the qualifier that the front legs have become sensory appendages, it still implies that those sensory appendages are part of the count to eight. That would mean that "all" and "almost all" are mutually exclusive in their contexts. May I recommend that the second sentence of the article be changed to "Almost all arachnids have eight legs?" It's notable that mites, though all arachnids, sometimes have six or even four legs, depending on the subspecies. So "Almost all" is the correct qualifier. 50.165.125.242 (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Horseshoe crabs are arachnids (?)
Numerous phylogenetic studies have placed Xiphosura as the sister group to all other arachnids. I'd be cautious about claims that they are nested within Arachnida based on a single new study that apparently disagrees with all that have come before it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.174.100 (talk) 03:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

This paper summarizes (albeit not as its main focus) the various hypotheses regarding the phylogenetic position of Xiphosurans with regard to arachnids: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150065 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.111.254.17 (talk) 18:41, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Regarding taxonomy
Why are the Palpigradi excluded? 84.208.233.159 (talk) 09:14, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * ?? They aren't. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to the trees or whatever they are called. The sentence says "In early 2019, a phylogenetic analysis placed the horseshoe crabs, Xiphosura, as the sister group to Ricinulei. It also grouped pseudoscorpions with mites and ticks, which the authors considered may be due to long branch attraction." Under it there is a tree where all the groups are mentioned, except Palpigradi. 84.208.233.159 (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * According to the paper cited, no exemplars of Palpigradi were included in the study: "The taxon sampling comprised 53 terminals, with Chelicerata represented by three Xiphosura, two Pycnogonida, and 34 arachnids. Exemplars of all extant arachnid orders were included except Schizomida (sister group to Uropygi; Clouse et al., 2017) and Palpigradi (incertae sedis; Shultz 2007; Sharma et al. 2014a)." Kaldari (talk) 18:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Taxobox image
Hi, I want to change the image of the taxobox as the second collage available offers more diversity, but if someone disagrees it's ok. Any opinion? 84.78.243.241 (talk) 14:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Phylogeny including Xiphosura as sister group of Ricinulei
Perhaps the cladogram including xiphosurans needs to be simplified, as the cladogram after Ballesteros & Sharma, 2019 does not include extinct taxa. Iezer (talk) 09:32, 12 May 2023 (UTC)