Arachnid

BY LETTER

Arachnid

Image from Wikimedia CC

A class of Old Earth arthropods. Among other common characteristics they have eight legs, a pair of appendages legs that serve as mouth parts called chelicerae, and an additional pair of appendages called pedipalps that may serve for feeding, locomotion, or reproduction depending on the species. Arachnids include spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, and whip scorpions. Most are detritivores, parasites, or predators. Before the Great Dying there were over 100,000 species. Records of many of the originals were preserved by the Burning Library Project, and it is believed that GAIA has lazurogened many or all of the ancient varieties. Arachnids are common to in almost any Terragen-derived biosystem, if only as soil organisms.

A wide range of arachnomorphs such as space spiders and bucky spiders may be found throughout the Terragen Sphere. Humanoid/spider hybrid morphs such as the Imtonasi are a fairly widespread bodyplan.

Since spider-like alien species are relatively common, several of these species have been provolved or copied and augmented in various ways; one of the first spider-like species discovered was the Pspyders, which utilise neural-net-like webs to extend their processing capabilities.

Arachnoweave
Arthropod
Bucky Spiders - Text by Steve Bowers
Small spidersplices with adapted spinnerets producing buckyfibre on demand - controlled by bionano (mostly Zoeific clades) or hylonano neural implants - used in small scale construction and the manufacture of fabrics.
Hellspiders
Imtonasi
Pspyder
Silk God, The
Space Spiders

Appears in Topics

Zoology

Development Notes

Text by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 27 June 2010.

Additional Information

Image from Wikimedia Commons, by contributor Ken-ichi Ueda
full copyright info here
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Latrodectus_hesperus_Berkeley,_California.jpg

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