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Science 27 October 1989:
Vol. 246. no. 4929, pp. 479 - 481
DOI: 10.1126/science.246.4929.479
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Articles

A Devonian Spinneret: Early Evidence of Spiders and Silk Use

WILLIAM A. SHEAR 1, JACQUELINE M. PALMER 2, JONATHAN A. CODDINGTON 3, and PATRICIA M. BONAMO 4

1 Department of Biology, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943, and American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024.
2 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
3 Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560.
4 Center for Evolution and the Paleoenvironment, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13901.

A nearly complete spider spinneret was found in Middle Devonian rocks (about 385 to 380 million years old) near Gilboa, New York. This is the earliest evidence yet discovered for silk production from opisthosomal spigots, and therefore for spiders. Two previously known Devonian fossils described as spiders lack any apomorphies of the order Araneae and are probably not spiders. The spigots of the Devonian spinneret resemble those of members of the living suborder Mesothelae, but the number of spigots and their distribution are like those of members of the suborder Opisthothelae, infraorder Mygalomorphae. The Devonian spider belonged to a clade that may be the sister group of all other spiders, of Mesothelae, or of Opisthothelae.

Submitted on June 30, 1989
Accepted on August 29, 1989


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
From the Cover: Fossil evidence for the origin of spider spinnerets, and a proposed arachnid order.
P. A. Selden, W. A. Shear, and M. D. Sutton (2008)
PNAS 105, 20781-20785
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Expansion and Intragenic Homogenization of Spider Silk Genes since the Triassic: Evidence from Mygalomorphae (Tarantulas and Their Kin) Spidroins.
J. E. Garb, T. DiMauro, R. V. Lewis, and C. Y. Hayashi (2007)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 2454-2464
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Historical contingency and the purported uniqueness of evolutionary innovations.
G. J. Vermeij (2006)
PNAS 103, 1804-1809
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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