Ancient daddy long-legs

305 million year old arachnids were studied using the latest computer tomography techniques

painting of the new daddy long-legs

An international research team, including Dr Jason Dunlop from the Museum of Natural History Berlin, today published their discovery of two remarkable French harvestman fossils in the international science journal Nature Communications. These 305 million year old arachnids were studied using the latest computer tomography techniques. The 3D images and film clips show that these animals from the Carboniferous coal swamps resemble two groups of harvestmen which can still be found today. Thus harvestmen must have split into their major groups over 300 million years ago, and since then some of them have hardly changed their body shape at all.