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Palaeothele
Extinct genus of spiders From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Palaeothele is an extinct genus of mesothele spiders, with only one known species Palaeothele montceauensis.[1] Two fossils were found at Montceau-les-Mines, France, in ironstone concretion deposits of Late Carboniferous (Stephanian) age, about 304 to 299 million years ago.[2]
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Taxonomy
The genus was first named as Eothele by Paul A. Selden in 1996. However, this name had already been used for a Cambrian brachiopod, so in 2000, Selden proposed the replacement name Palaeothele. Palaeothele is derived from the Greek παλαιός, "ancient", and θηλή, "nipple" – a common ending for spider names, referring to their spinnerets.[3] The species name montceauensis refers to the location where the fossils were found.[2]
Phylogeny
In 1996, Selden suggested the relationships shown in the cladogram below. (At the time, Attercopus was thought to be a spider; it is now considered to belong to a related but separate group, the Uraraneida.) Palaeothele is shown as sister to the modern genus Heptathela since they both have "tracheal sacs", structures adjacent to the posterior book lungs.[2]
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References
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