Fossils can tell scientists a lot about an animal such as their morphology, their environment, and where to place them in the tree of life. One thing though that's very difficult to observe in the fossil record is an animal's ...
Paleontology & Fossils
May 6, 2022
0
317
Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant internal body temperature. As anyone who's experienced heatstroke can tell you, our bodies become severely stressed when we overheat.
Plants & Animals
Sep 8, 2021
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41
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong put the first human footprint on the moon. But when did animals leave the first footprint on Earth?
Archaeology
Jun 6, 2018
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148
Digital dissection shows that two horseshoe crab appendages—the pushing leg and the male pedipalp—each have one more muscle than had been thought, according to a study published February 14, 2018 in the open-access journal ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 14, 2018
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12
Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce ancient sea creature called Habelia optata that has confounded scientists ...
Archaeology
Dec 21, 2017
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1397
Biology Letters talks to Maya deVries, author of a recently published article that describes the feeding habits of stomatopod crustaceans with two kinds of highly specialized feeding appendages; those with elongated spear-like ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 26, 2017
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2
A scientific collaboration of researchers from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Smithsonian Institution has discovered previously unknown regularities of arthropod limbs based on studies of the remipede Speleonectes ...
Archaeology
Aug 22, 2016
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0
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers from Penn State University and the University of California has discovered a protein that is required for the growth of tiny, but critical, hair-like structures called cilia on cell surfaces. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 27, 2014
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0
All of us backboned animals – at least the ones who also have jaws – have four fins or limbs, one pair in front and one pair behind. These have been modified dramatically in the course of evolution, into a marvelous variety ...
Evolution
Jan 27, 2014
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0
Research led by University of Arizona Regents' Professor Nick Strausfeld and London Natural History Museum's Greg Edgecombe has revealed that the ancestors of chelicerates (spiders, scorpions and their kin) branched off from ...
Archaeology
Oct 16, 2013
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0
In invertebrate biology, an appendage is an external body part, or natural prolongation, that protrudes from an organism's body (in verterbrate biology, an example would be a vertebrate's limbs). It is a general term that covers any of the homologous body parts that may extend from a body segment. These include antennae, mouthparts (including mandibles, maxillae and maxillipeds), wings, elytra, gills, walking legs (pereiopods), swimming legs (pleopods), sexual organs (gonopods), and parts of the tail (uropods). Typically, each body segment carries one pair of appendages.
An appendage which is modified to assist in feeding is known as a maxilliped or gnathopod.
Appendages may be uniramous, as in insects and centipedes, where each appendage comprises a single series of segments, or it may be biramous, as in many crustaceans, where each appendage branches into two sections. Triramous (branching into three) appendages are also possible.
All arthropod appendages are variations of the same basic structure (homologous), and which structure is produced is controlled by "homeobox" genes. Changes to these genes have allowed scientists to produce animals (chiefly Drosophila melanogaster) with modified appendages, such as legs instead of antennae.
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