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3. Both
Endodermal
NERVOUS SYSTEM
- Highly cephalized central nervous system (CNS)
- Concentrated ganglia in cephalothorax
SENSE ORGANS
- 3 common sense organs:
o Sensory setae
Mechanoreceptors- responds to touch or sound
Chemoreceptors- responds to chemical stimuli
Trichobothria- detects weak air movements (e.g. allows blind spider to detect and
capture flies)
- present also in insects
o Eyes
3-5 small eyes
Highly modified ommatidia
May have lateral eyes, median eyes, both, or neither
o Slit sense organs
Locomotion
Detect changes in tension on the exoskeleton due to deformation
May also respond to gravity and vibrations
- Lacks antennae on first head segment
- Telson functions as posterior antenna
REPRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
- Gonochoric
- Internal fertilization
- Copulatory penis for direct transfer of sperm
- Spermatophores for indirect transfer of sperm (most arachnids)
o Original mode
o Adaptation for land reproduction
- Courtship ritual
- Mostly oviparous, some viviparous
EURYPTERIDA (extinct)
- Aquatic euchelicerates during the Ordovician to Permian
- Largest arthropods ever
o Pterygotus almost 3 meters in length
- Similar to modern scorpions
o Tagmosis
BODY
- Two tagmata: cephalothorax and abdomen
- carapace
- cephalothorax smaller than abdomen
- capable of swimming and crawling at the bottom
- abdominal segments not fused
- seven-segmented preabdomen; 5 pairs of gills; no genital operculum
- narrower five-segmented postabdomen; no appendages; tail spine (poisonous in some)
SOURCES:
Ruppert EE, Fox RS, Barnes RB. Invertebrate Zoology, A functional evolutionary approach, 9 th ed.