researcher study the 430 - million - year - old dodo of a new early arthropod metal money have discovered 10 tiny arthropods tethered to it with longsighted , individual threads . The finding , describe inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesthis week , reveal a singular mode of brood care that reflects the multifariousness of strategy we see in today ’s arthropod , the divers mathematical group that includes insects , spider , and crab .
Yale’sDerek Briggsand colleague analyzed a single , three - dimensional arthropod fossil uncovered from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte down payment in the U.K. The specimen ’s head is covered by a shield with a snout - like sound projection , and it has four pairs of head appendages : a longsighted , stout antenna ( h1 ) , a tree branch for manipulating food ( h2 ) , and two ramose process ( h3 , h4 ) on either side . Its elongated trunk has 11 segment that are covered by tergites ( or dorsal plates ) with long , slender lateral spine , and there are limb coming off each of the luggage compartment section . A poor tail - like projection called the telson bears long , parallel mate structure called cerci . The dead body is 9.5 millimeters long , the antennae are about as long as the body , and the cerci are 7.3 millimeters long .
Ten bantam arthropod – shaped like flatten lemon between 0.5 and 2 millimeters long – are attached to the tergites with thread up 3.3 millimeters long . These likely represent a brooding strategy where juvenile are latched onto an grownup , likely the female . Each of the juveniles has about six brace of process – in contrast to the 15 pairs of the grownup . They must win segment as they transition to their adult variety .
This combination of characters is different than any known arthropod ( living or fossil ) , and the team named itAquilonifer spinosus . The name consult to the resemblance between the tethered juvenile person and kites , and it ring the form of address of Khaled Hosseini ’s 2003 novel " The Kite Runner . " The genus combines " aquila , " for bird of Jove or kite , with the suffix " fer , " meaning carry , to make " aquilonifer , " or kite bearer . The coinage name comes from " spinosus " for spiny , touch to the farsighted spines on the tergites .
There ’s no exact analog of this pensiveness scheme among living arthropods , and evidence of brooding in general in fogey arthropod is rare . This form of brood guardianship kept the materialisation safe from predators by keeping them close to the parent . Aquiloniferlikely lived on the seafloor , where it used its transmitting aerial to drag the sediment for food , which it then manipulated with its second head appendages .
