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Systems of Arachnida

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Zoogeography of Arachnida

Part of the book series: Monographiae Biologicae ((MOBI,volume 94))

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Abstract

Heymons (1901), the author of the term Chelicerata, united Merostomata (Eurypterids and Xiphosurans) with Arachnida in one monophyletic group. Dunlop and Selden (1997) restricted this term to Lemoneites, Xiphosura, Chasmataspida, Eurypterida, and Arachnida. There were many attempts to create a “natural” system of the monophyletic (Wheeler et al. 1993) class of Arachnida. Presently, it seems well established that the class Arachnida (Lamarck 1801) is composed of 10 recent orders plus 2–6 orders of “Acari” and variable number of fossil taxa. The seemingly undisputed orders are Palpigradi, Solifugae, Amblypygi, Uropygi, Schizomida, Ricinulei, Scorpiones, Pseudoscorpiones, Opiliones, and Araneae. The Acari have been (and still are) subject of various systems (see Beron 2008, 2011), more often considered as two (Acariformes and Parasitiformes) or three (+ Opilioacarida) orders. In the recent Manual of Acarology, Krantz and Walter and eds. (2009) agree on six orders of “Acari,” Mesostigmata, Holothyrida, Ixodida, Opilioacarida, Sarcoptiformes, and Trombidiformes, grouped in two superorders: Acariformes and Parasitiformes. Some authors (Stockwell 1989, Lourenço 2000) still raise some orders into subclasses or even classes (Opilionida, Scorpionida).

“Traditions die hard: it is difficult to understand why fishes or birds should be divided into dozens of orders, whereas, for most zoologists, a single order appears sufficient for all spiders or all mites. From this it could be inferred that either the arachnologists are more conservative or, in the eyes of most zoologists, small differences between (nice) birds are more significant than great differences between (ugly) spiders.”

P.M. Brignoli (1980, The Evolution of Arachnida)

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  1. National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Petar Beron

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Beron, P. (2018). Systems of Arachnida. In: Zoogeography of Arachnida. Monographiae Biologicae, vol 94. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74418-6_3

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