An extremely rare collection of 160-million-year-old sea spider fossils from Southern France are closely related to living species, unlike older fossils of their kind.
These fossils are very important to understand the evolution of sea spiders. They show that the diversity of sea spiders that still exist today had already started to form by the Jurassic.
"Sea spider fossils are very rare, but we know a few of them from different periods. One of the most remarkable fauna, by its diversity and its abundance, is the one of La Voulte-sur-Rhône that dates back to the Jurassic, some 160 million years ago." This confirmed that these fossils are close relatives to surviving pycnogonids. Two of these fossils belong to two living pycnogonid families:was an Endeidae. The third species,"Today, by calculating the difference between the DNA sequences of a sample of species, and using DNA evolution models, we are able to estimate the timing of the evolution that bind these species together," added Dr Sabroux.
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