Other Chelicerates (Pycnogonida and Merostomata)
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 33 specimens of sea spiders (Pycnogonida) and horseshoe crabs (Merostomata). These date from 1870 to 2006. This collection consists of two classes of the subphylum Chelicerata – the sea spiders (Pycnogonida) and the horseshoe crabs (Merostomata). There are approximately 22 jars of sea spider specimens in spirit, all of which are from British seas. They come mainly from two collectors – Dr R Bamber in 1983, who collected specimens through diving, and DL Burkel in the mid 1970s, who collected specimens from trawling and dredging during the expeditions of the research vessels Challenger and Walther Herwig in the North Atlantic. The collection also boasts a first British record and a first European record for specimens, along with one specimen from the 1902 collection of A Patience and detailed location accounts for the specimens collected by Burkel in the 1970s. There are a further 10 dried specimens of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polythemus) from the USA, which consist of either whole animal remains or shed exoskeletons, and one spirit jar showing a horseshoe crab lifecycle. Horseshoe crabs are an example of a ‘living fossil’ as they have barely changed in 400 million years. Sea Spiders, of which there are about 1,300 known species, are almost as old. Recent research suggests that they may in fact belong to an independent subphylum of Arthropoda.
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