Fossil aus der Zeit vor etwa einer halben Milliarde Jahren zeigt, dass ein früher Verwandter von Spinnen und Skorpionen Krallen besaß

A stunningly preserved fossil shows that early relatives of spiders and scorpions were already armed with their hallmark front claws about half a billion years ago.

The newly described animal preserves [the oldest clear example yet found of these specialized appendages](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10284-2), paleontologist Rudy Lerosey-Aubril and colleagues report April 1 in *Nature*. The find helps settle a long-standing debate over how the claws evolved and shows that chelicerates — the group that today includes  horseshoe crabs, ticks and daddy longlegs — had already taken on a surprisingly modern body plan.

“This creature is super-modern in anatomy for an animal that is 500 million years old,” says Lerosey-Aubril, of Harvard University.

[**Read more here**](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fossil-claws-spider-scorpions-evolution?utm_source=Reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=rmh) **and the** [**research article here**](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10284-2)**.**