500-million-year-old shrimp-like fossil reveals the origin of spider fangs

Newly described fossils of Urokodia, a shrimp-like creature that lived 500 million years ago, shed light on the evolutionary origins of spider fangs, known as chelicerae. Urokodia had pincer-like limbs emerging just beside its eyes, which researchers consider ancestral to the mouthparts of modern arachnids. The discovery helps explain how one of spiders' most distinctive — and fearsome — features evolved.

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