amebocytes,
American Chemical Society,
arachnids,
Australia,
cancer,
cephalothorax,
City of Hope Cancer Center,
daddy-longlegs,
death stalker,
Delaware,
dragline silk,
horseshoe crabs,
Huwentoxin-IV,
immunotherapy,
Intelligent Design,
Journal of Natural Products,
Jurgen Otto,
Limulus Amebocyte Lysate,
mating season,
mites,
Nature Communications,
peacock spiders,
pedipalps,
scorpions,
spider web,
spider-silk,
spiders,
Tachypleus gigas,
tarantulas,
ticks,
toxins,
University of Melbourne,
University of Queensland,
venom,
β-sheet
Arachnids (a class of invertebrate arthropods, most with six pairs of appendages, of which four are usually for locomotion) make up some of the scariest creepy-crawlies to most people. The class includes spiders, daddy-longlegs, mites, ticks, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs. They have simple eyes, unlike the compound eyes of most insects. Also different from insects, arachnids have a fused head and thorax (the cephalothorax) and abdomen; the cephalothorax is often covered by a hard carapace. The first pair of appendages in spiders, the pedipalps, help hold prey; in scorpions, they act as pincers. Lacking jaws, spiders suck the juice out of their prey and discard the exoskeleton. Some hunting spiders have exceptional vision, with eight eyes looking in all directions. Horseshoe crabs, only recently added to the class of arachnids…