Search

A cuticle fragment found in an Early Devonian (Emsian) macerate from the Strathpeffer–Struie outlier in the Northern Highlands of Scotland represents the isolated pectinal tooth of a scorpion. This remarkable find includes a distinctive field of small projections in rounded sockets consistent with the peg sensilla of extant scorpions. This is the oldest evidence for the presence of these characteristic sensory organs, which in modern scorpions play an important role in chemo- and mechanoreception. The fossil indicates that some scorpions had developed anatomically modern pectinal teeth at least 395 million years ago, suggesting that the pectines of these early scorpions played a similar role, physiologically and behaviorally, to those of living species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fossil whip spider Electrophrynus mirus Petrunkevitch 1971 (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Electrophrynidae) from the Mexican Chiapas amber (Miocene: ca 15-20 Ma) is redescribed. Its original referral to an extinct family and genus based on an unusual configuration of the pedipalp is shown to be based on a misinterpretation. The family Electrophrynidae has already been synonymized with Phrynidae. Although E. mirus closely resembles modern phrynids, a key diagnostic character relating to the dorsal pattern of spines on the pedipalp patella is not preserved. Since this incomplete fossil cannot be meaningfully compared either to modern genera or to other whip spiders in Neotropical amber, we believe the pragmatic solution is to treat E. mirus as a nomen dubium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]