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About 435 million years ago, a 3.3-foot-long (1 meter) sea scorpion wandered the waters of what is now China, trapping prey with its large, prickly arms. The researchers wrote in the November 30 issue of the journal Science Bulletin that archaeologists recently discovered the remains of the scorpion, a broad-winged order — an ancient arthropod closely associated with modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs.
The study's co-author, Bo Wang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology, said its barbed limbs "presumably used to catch prey, using the analogy of a 'predator basket' formed by the multi-thorny tentacles of a whip spider ... In Arachnids," the Center for Excellence in Paleontology and Life and the Paleoenvironment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues wrote in the new study. Pedipalps are the earliest appendages of arachnids. Usually dedicated to the transfer of sperm from male spiders to female mates, in some arachnids, such as whip spiders, tentacles have adapted to catch prey.
Translation: Phalaenopsis Orchid Source: Fun Science Network