Abstract
THE typical breathing organs of most of the larger recent Arachnids are lung-books. These are thought to have arisen from the segmentally arranged gills of an aquatic ancestor. The presence of lung-books in fossil Arachnids is thus of importance in any phylo-genetic studies on the group. Petrunkeviteh1–3 has reviewed the known Palæozoic and Mesozoic fossils and shown the presence of paired structures on the proximal opisthosomal sternites of a few forms, particularly among the Carboniferous Anthracomartida and Trigonotarbida. These he has reasonably interpreted as representing the stigmata of lung-books. However, there seem to be no records of definite lung-book structure in any fossil.
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References
Petrunkevitch, A., Trans. Connecticut Acad. Arts Sci., 37, 69 (1949).
Petrunkevitch, A., Mem. Geol. Soc. Amer., 53 (1953).
Petrunkevitch, A., in Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology (edit. by Moore, R. C.), P. Arthropoda, 2 (Kansas, 1955).
Hirst, S., Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (9), 12, 455 (1923).
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CLARIDGE, M., LYON, A. Lung-books in the Devonian Palæocharinidae (Arachnida). Nature 191, 1190–1191 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/1911190b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1911190b0
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