the.com/arachnid
Eight legs, no insurance, zero interest in your opinion of spiders.
means An arachnid is a joint-legged animal with eight legs and two body segments — spiders, scorpions, ticks, and mites all belong to this class, distinct from insects.
from From Greek 'arachne,' meaning spider, and tied to the myth of Arachne, the weaver who challenged the goddess Athena to a contest and was turned into a spider for her pride (or her skill, depending who's telling it). The scientific term 'Arachnida' was coined in the 18th century to group spiders with their eight-legged relatives like scorpions and mites, borrowing that old myth's name to label the whole crawling clan.
- leg count
- always eight, never six like insects
- body plan
- two segments: cephalothorax and abdomen
- diversity
- includes spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, harvestmen
- ancient order
- fossils date back over 400 million years