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Arachnid
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. Non-sophont splices such as space spiders and bucky spiders are fairly common. Spider provolves and rianths are quite rare, but the Imtonasi are a fairly widespread clade.
Related Articles
- 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. - Imtonasi
- Space Spiders - Text by Steve Bowers
Vacuum and zero gee adapted, sentient or semisentient spidersplices, from micro-scale to giant; usually capable of producing buckyfibre silk. Contribute to many megascale building projects, sometimes controlled directly by transcended postspiders.
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Development Notes
Text by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 27 June 2010.
Initially published on 27 June 2010.
