Where did the first known fossil spider ancestors appear in the sea?
Quick Answer
The earliest arachnid relatives are known from ancient marine fossils found in places such as China and other parts of the Cambrian fossil record. They show that the arachnid lineage has very deep evolutionary roots.
The Full Story
The earliest fossil relatives of arachnids are known from very ancient marine deposits, including Cambrian sites in China and elsewhere. These fossils help scientists trace the deep origins of spiders, scorpions, and their relatives before they became land animals. Because the fossil record is incomplete, scientists often rely on exceptional sites that preserve soft-bodied arthropods. Such discoveries show that arachnid evolution began far earlier than the appearance of modern spiders on land. The exact ancestry is still studied, but the record clearly reaches back hundreds of millions of years.
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