305-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Four-Eyed Daddy Longlegs Found in France

Posted on April 10, 2014

Scientists found a 305-million-year-old fossil of a harvestmen in France that shows the ancient arachnids had an extra pair of eyes. Harvestman are also known as daddy longlegs. They are not spiders even though they resemble them. Scientists say they are more related to scorpions in the arachnids group. Scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Manchester led the research.

Hastocularis argus, the new species described by the researchers from the fossil, has both median and lateral eyes. These images of the fossil of the ancient harvestman were made using a high-resolution x-ray scan at the Natural History Museum in London.

Prashant Sharma, a postdoctoral researcher in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology and one of the lead authors on the new study, said in a statement, "Terrestrial arthropods like harvestmen have a sparse fossil record because their exoskeletons don't preserve well. As a result, some fundamental questions in the evolutionary history of these organisms remain unresolved. This exceptional fossil has given us a rare and detailed look at the anatomy of harvestmen that lived hundreds of millions of years ago."

Russell Garwood, a research fellow at the University of Manchester and a lead author on the study, says, "Fossils preserved in three dimensions are quite rare. This is especially true of harvestmen. Our x-ray techniques have allowed us to reveal this fossil in more detail than we would have dreamed possible two decades ago."

A research paper on the harvestman fossil was published here in Current Biololgy.

ANIMALS
SPIDERS