I saw this short video at a conference last year and was entranced. The clip shows how the ancestral arachnid body plan changed as it evolved through various descendant lineages.
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Wot? No harvestmen?
Yeah, I noticed that. Where should they go in the tree?
Oh, um, yeah, there is that... The latest major study (Shultz, 2007) placed harvestmen (with underwhelming support) as the sister taxon to scorpions, but I wouldn't be surprised if this changed again in the future.
Thanks! This was AWESOME =D
Hmmm... someone should do these for as much of the tree of life as possible! Some place where you can just click and watch your favourite lineage evolve through time!