Amypteride🏳️‍⚧️🔻🕷🦂

I'm rewatching My Adventures with Superman, I love this scene so much, I have such a soft spot for Clark being genuinely nice & kind with kids❤️

Cheliceratime by @amypteride.bsky.social A place to discover extinct & extant chelicerates🕷🦂 with homemade drawings/paleoarts✏️ https://linktr.ee/cheliceratime

And for you on Bluesky, remember there's already a Cheliceratime feed you can sub to if you want to scroll all the entries directly on bluesky! :D
bsky.app/profile/amyp...

Thank you for reading & I'll see you on the next #Cheliceratime ! :D

A screenshot of the phylogenetic tree of cheliceratime entries

a screenshot of what happen when you click on an entry of the tree, you'll have the links to both insta, bluesky & tiktok

Keep in mind this tree is a synthesis of various works & I still kept large uncertainties when I considered them expressly needed, so the tree will most likely change in the following months/years, nothing is set in stone except the entries & their links when you click on them!^^
#Cheliceratime
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What time is it? It’s #Cheliceratime!
No classic post today, more an announcement: you can now find all the entries in the form of a phylogenetic tree with all the entries' links right here! ⬇️
www.canva.com/design/DAG4G...

#Cheliceratime
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なんかいて草

A comic panel of Lois Lane saying to Superman "I heard your voice. Felt you near. I knew that Superman was there with me, fighting for me, no matter what. That's all it took. That's how you saved me."

A panel where Superman save a man and say to him "I'm trapped in here, just like you, our minds linked by the parasite nervous system. I'm here to let you know you're not alone. Right now, I'm doing the same for all two million, seven thousand, three hundred seventy nine thousand, three hundred eighty eight people in metropolis. Not to mention the dogs and cats and pigeons and carp from the hobs river and..."

A panel of a discussion between Superman and Hawkman Superman (in a flashback): "you tell them I don't sleep and nothing they have can hurt me. Tell them my sens stretch for miles, and I'm strong as the sun. And you tell them I'm coming." Hawkman: "Yeah I remember." Superman: " "the way of this world was written in stone". That's what you said, like it's something immutable. Afraid of a bit of stone, when all this time... you could have move mountains. Tell the people you work for I'm not you Hall."

Absolute Superman is just absolute peak, as a life long Superman nerd, it's the true "darker mature" reboot the new 52 should have been, without ever losing that not staying passive, doing the right thing, giving others hope to act too and being really political is in the freaking heart of Superman

Dark, shallow underwater scene showing three Astraspis, yellow, finless, jawless fish with armored head swimming to the right, surrounded by some algae and rocks. 3D artwork.

Murky underwater scene with two Eriptychius, dark brownish, finless, jawless fish facing each other, half buried in the soft sediment, with rocks in the background. 3D artwork.

Top view of a shallow marine environment with Eriptychius and Astraspis, two different species of jawless fishes, loitering around the soft sediment and rocks. 3D artwork.

Look at my fesh
#Art #SciArt

Dates à noter dans vos agendas ! ✏️📆

✨️Festival #pint26 du 18 au 20 mai 2026
💻Programme en ligne : 30 mars
🎟Tickets en ligne : 13 avril

Plus d'infos ⬇️
pintofscience.fr

Known for more than 140 years, this species may be one of the most widespread palpigrade in the world due to human activities that accidentally exported it far from Europe & Northern Africa. The long flagellum at its end can break during its life. Size: 1 to 2mm in body length Time period: Holocene (present day) Conservation status: Least concern/Near threatened The animal drawn is a palpigrade, a beige scorpion/spider like animal but with long front legs and a long tail-like flagellum at its end

What time is it? It’s #Cheliceratime!
Today we're talking about palpigrades, small cryptic arachnids, with one of their most widespread member, Eukoenenia mirabilis!

All the basic infos are here but if you want to learn more, there’s more below!⬇️

#palpigrade #arachnid #sciart #bugsky #invert

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🕷️ Souvent représentées comme des créatures malveillantes dans les livres et les films, les #araignées ont très mauvaise presse chez les humains. Mais d'où vient la crainte répandue de cet #animal ?

D'après l'article du Muséum : "Qu'est-ce qu'une araignée ?" www.mnhn.fr/fr/qu-est-ce...

And sorry again for cutting it short, hope I'll have more time one day ><

And regarding the merostomata case, the alternative proposed by Dunlop & Garwood, that also take into account how fucked up the resolution of this part of the tree is due to extinct lineages, is a good proposal review and was highlighted by Sharma & Gavish-Regev
doi.org/10.30963/ara...

like putting genome duplications on nodes with half of the descendants extinct (so absolutely no way to justify this) and various results regarding precise branchings. Like I've always been said, a phylogeny is just an hypothesis, what matters is how much it's strongly supported again and again.

And it was too much text for a post, but I know what phylogeny you refer at for offacolids in arachnids, and even tho I like this paper & that I'm far from opposed to a revised merostomata near arachnopulmonates, this only a one shot in 1 study from 2022 & the figure has really questionnable points,

We're gonna have strong divergences on several things, not sure I'll have enough time to respond to all (give me a day with nothing to do godamnit) of that but if I manage to find said time I'll respond properly sorry ><

Eukoenenia mirabilis‘s presence has been established to be natural in several countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Italy being an observation hot spot for this species. However, due to human activities, this palpigrade is one of the animals we brought with us around the world, transforming a small random soil palearctic species into an invasive species. Several areas way outside of its birthplace have now been colonized by this species, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere. Due to how hard to study are these arthropods, the impact of such colonization events is unknown.

Is this drawing accurate ? I had a bit of trouble understanding properly the main body sub-segmentation, but I think it encompasses well the general aspect of this species! The flagellum is often broken in live specimens, so the length & segments count will often vary depending the individual you’re looking at. Did my best but translucent looks aren’t my strong suit The propeltidium is heart-shaped it’s so cute :3

REFERENCES • Balestra V., Lana E. & Vanin S., 2022. Observations on the habitat and feeding behaviour of the hypogean genus Eukoenenia (Palpigradi, Eukoeneniidae) in the Western Italian Alps. Subterranean Biology 42, p. 23–41. • Giribet G.A.K., McIntyre E., Christian E.B., Espinasa L., Ferreira R.L.D., Francke Ó.F., Harvey M.S., Isaia M., Kovác L., McCutchen L., Souza M.F. V. R. & Zagmajster M., 2014. The first phylogenetic analysis of Palpigradi (Arachnida) – the most enigmatic arthropod order. Invertebrate Systematics 28, p. 350–360. • Harvey M.S., Stahlavsky F. & Theron P.D., 2006. The distribution of Eukoenenia mirabilis (Palpigradi: Eukoeneniidae): a widespread tramp. Records of the Western Australian Museum 23, p. 199-203. • Mayoral J.G.., 2015. Clase Arachnida. Orden Palpigradi. Revista electrónica - Ibero Diversidad Entomológica 10, p. 1-9. • Sharma P.P. & Gavish-Regev E., 2025. The Evolutionary Biology of Chelicerata. Annual Review of Entomology 70, p. 143–163. Dunlop J. A., Penney D. & Jekel D. 2023. A summary list of fossil spiders and their relatives. In World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern, online at http://wsc.nmbe.ch, version 23.5. Eukoenenia mirabilis - World Palpigradi Catalog https://wac.nmbe.ch/order/palpigradi/speciesdata/1421

This species gained some attention due to how humans transported it in the southern hemisphere, making it a bit of an invasive species (and of course the usual drawing autofeedback and some refs).

Thank you for reading & I’ll see you on the next #Cheliceratime!
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Eukoenenia mirabilis is one of the many palpigrade species known. Like all palpigrades, it’s a few millimeters long arachnid with a distinct look: - The telson is modified into a long and segmented flagellum that can easily break. - The prosoma is subdivided into 3 parts, from back to front: the metapeltidium, the mesopeltidium, the propeltidium - The animal is eyeless but possesses small sensory organs at the front of the prosoma, called simply the frontal & lateral organs. - No lungs or trachea to breathe. - The first pair of legs is elongated & serves as sensory organs, while pedipalps are often used to walk. - A opisthosoma ending subdivided into 2, with shorter segments at the end.

This species has been observed in a wide range of environments, from being a soil dweller to a cave inhabitant like a lot of other palpigrades. As usual with this arachnid order, high humidity is key for survival, hence the environments cited before. Due to the scarcity of observations, the life cycle of this species (and palpigrades as a whole to be honest) isn’t really clear.

Eukoenenia mirabilis belongs to one of the 4 main subgroups of the genus Eukoenenia, the type genus of the family Eukoeneniidae, one of the only 2 families of palpigrades. Palpigrades have historically been one of, if not the most difficult arachnid orders to place in arachnid phylogeny due to a lack of interest to study them, their rarity, an almost non-existing fossil record and their extra weird anatomy compared to other arachnids, looking both super primitive and super derived. Most recent studies tend to stabilise them in the cephalosomates as a sister group to the combo solifuges + acariformes mites, both morphological and genetic data supporting these relationships. The slide also comprise a phylogenettic tree in which palpigrades are the sister group to solifuges and acariformes mites. Palpigrades themselves comprise the family Eukoeneniidae, Prokoeneniidae & the weird species Parakoenenia mordax

Due to their small size, palpigrades’ ecology is poorly known. Studies on other Eukoenenia species living in caves reported predation on springtails, meaning they are small meio/micro-predators. Palpigrades are among the most difficult arachnids to study, first due to their small size, but also because they have super fragile bodies hard to manipulate and to preserve (+ they are far from being the easiest arachnids to find). The slide comprise also pictures of an act of predation of Eukoenenia strinatii on a springtail

You know the drill, let's talk about its morphology, distribution, phylogeny and behaviors first to meet this arachnid. Palpigrades aren't the most popular arachnids, mostly due to how hard observing them can be.

#Cheliceratime
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Known for more than 140 years, this species may be one of the most widespread palpigrade in the world due to human activities that accidentally exported it far from Europe & Northern Africa. The long flagellum at its end can break during its life. Size: 1 to 2mm in body length Time period: Holocene (present day) Conservation status: Least concern/Near threatened The animal drawn is a palpigrade, a beige scorpion/spider like animal but with long front legs and a long tail-like flagellum at its end

What time is it? It’s #Cheliceratime!
Today we're talking about palpigrades, small cryptic arachnids, with one of their most widespread member, Eukoenenia mirabilis!

All the basic infos are here but if you want to learn more, there’s more below!⬇️

#palpigrade #arachnid #sciart #bugsky #invert

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J'pense qu'on réalise pas trop que les USA et le gouvernement Trump organisent un génocide des personnes trans. Papiers d'identité révoqués du jour au lendemain, thérapies de conversion, interdiction d'accès aux soins, crilminilisation. Je sais pas trop ce qu'il faut de plus en fait.

Suit yourself, I don't see on what we fundamentally disagree but I'll gladly read^^

With arachnids it just means that the definition of arachnids rely less on a morphological body plan that is really generic among chelicerates, but more on what we put in the group (species A & B and their ancestor) so of course xiphosurans didn't evolved from a spider-like animal we agree on this!!

So the traditional conception of arachnida is polyphyletic, no disagree on that, but taxonomy is just words and definitions, the concept of arachnids itself included centipedes and pycnogonids at first. It's like saying birds are dinosaurs, doesn't make one useless they are both.

And to be honest, the arachnid body plan is just what we would obtain by placing chelicerates on land: eyes and mouth moving forward, first legs modified as sensory appendages, internal reproduction, it's just arthropod terrestrialization 101

What's polyphyletic isn't arachnids themselves but the idea of the arachnid ground body plan we had for so long, but that body plan is just a result of wide evolutionary convergences erased by the fact most of aquatic euchelicerates are extinct and that in today's world, euchelicerate=prosomapod.

I use arachnids as the word encompassing the group comprising all the animals traditionally described as arachnids and their common ancestor, turns out horseshoe crabs are in the mix so welp they are too arachnids by definition.

Don't worry I'm well aware of the situation
I use arachnids not as a replacement of euchelicerates but of prosomapods since we have more primitive euchelicerates like offacolids and that it's at the prosomapod level that it becomes blurry (please I want more weird synziphosurines 🙏🤞)

I'm a bit short right now but it's on my bucket list of topics I'll talk about in Cheliceratime, hope I find cool things on the way!^^

So I wonder if the bricks for venom evolution weren't already there in some form among the ancestors of arachnopulmonates, the whole genome duplication of arachnopulmonates being the source of spiders silk & spinnerets it wouldn't surprise me if it played a role in venom evolution

Oh yeah sure the system itself is 100% convergent we agree, I meant more on the genetic side, it reminded me of the deep homology of the cartilage found both among arachnids (including horseshoe crabs of course) & vertebrates that can be traced all the way to the ancestors of nephrozoans/bilaterians