Lateral eye evolution in the arachnids

Abstract

Summary The distribution of lateral eyes in arachnids and their relatives (Chelicerata) is reviewed, including novel data for selected taxa. Particular focus was given to camel spiders (Solifugae) and whip scorpions (Thelyphonida), for which there are conflicting reports about their eye morphology in the literature, and to the condition in some fossil scorpions (Scorpiones) and some extinct trigonotarbid arachnids (Trigonotarbida), which have lateral eyes with c. 30 or up to 15 individual lenses, respectively. Arachnid outgroups like horseshoe crabs (Xiphosura) and sea scorpions (Eurypterida) have compound lateral eyes, but the hypothesis that reduction of these eyes to five lenses or fewer is a synapomorphy of Arachnida can be rejected. Fossil data indicate, instead, that the arachnid lateral eyes were also originally (semi-) compound, and that reduction to only a handful of lenses must be a homoplastic character state. Note that camel spiders retain vestigial lateral eyes, while fossil ricinuleids had a...