Spiders and other arachnids were thought to have originated on land. But a University of Arizona study upends the understanding of where, and possibly when, they first appeared. But the researcher says he doesn’t know what the future has in store for this “specialized” study, considering proposed cuts to federal science funding.
Nicholas Strausfeld was able to link the evolution of a spider to a much older ancestor than previously thought. And it's aquatic.
Arachnids were thought to have evolved on land 400 million years ago. But a new fossil analysis directly connects them 100 million years before that to a Mollisonia, a Cambrian-period sea creature.
Strausfeld says the giveaway was that the creature’s brain was flipped: a characteristic unique to spiders and possibly the key to their rapid leg movements.
But with the National Science Foundation’s funding in jeopardy, Strausfeld doesn’t see this type of study going much further, at least not in the United States.
"I would imagine this would probably just sort of just fade away and maybe be discovered again in the history books of science years hence. It’s a bit of a sort of depressing prediction, but I can’t really see anything being done, at least not in the USA," Strausfeld said.
He says that he worries Trump administration cuts will limit research sparked by curiosity.
“I mean I had students in my class who this year were near to tears because they saw that this kind of research just wasn’t feasible. They wanted to go to graduate school and it wouldn’t be feasible to do this kind of work because there’d be no money," Strausfeld said.
Nearing the end of his career, Strausfeld says he would have hoped to be able to pass this work along to the next generation.
