Daddy Longlegs Aren't Actually Spiders

Apr 12, 2014 09:44 AM EDT | Jordan Ecarma

Pluto isn't a planet, the pterosaur isn't actually a dinosaur and according to new fossil evidence, daddy longlegs aren't real spiders.

While they have eight legs and move in a way similar to spiders, daddy longlegs are more closely related to scorpions, mites and ticks, National Geographic reported.

Commonly known as daddy longlegs, harvestmen are arachnids found on every continent except Antarctica. The distinction between harvestmen and spiders was discovered when researchers analyzed a fossil that was found in France and is estimated to be 305 million years old.

Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the University of Manchester in England used x-rays to scan the ancient fossil, which formed around the tiny arthropod. Their resulting study has been published in the journal Current Biology.

Prior to when the sediments around the harvestmen fossil "compacted into rock, an iron carbonate mineral called siderite grew around it to form a nodule, otherwise known as a concretion," study leader Russell Garwood, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester, told National Geographic in an email.

"This stopped it being squashed with the rest of the rock. The fossil then rotted away, leaving a three-dimensional void in the rock."

Because land-based invertebrates decay quickly, their fossils are extremely rare, The Christian Science Monitor reported. This particular ancient rock had been unearthed more than 30 years ago, but scientists didn't know how to analyze it until Garwood proposed using CT scans.

The researchers found that the ancient daddy longlegs had four eyes, as opposed to its modern counterpart's single pair. Ancient harvestmen had eyes placed both near the middle of the body and on the side of the body, while modern daddy longlegs have eyes in only one location.

"Arachnid eyes in general are pretty variable, and different groups tend to lose or modify their eyes quite a bit," Garwood said.

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