Random af, but i’m aware harvestmen are their own order (Opiliones), but but cellar spiders are of the order Araneae and happen to look almost identical to harvestmen in north america (my home has harvestmen but my uncle has cellar spiders, they look super alike). Do you happen to know if this would be an example of convergent evolution, or is it more likely that these harvestmen and cellar spiders maintained traits of a common ancestor? I can’t find a satasfactory answer online or with my peers so I thought I’d ask here in case any of you know or have ideas.
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Well now I’m confused because I had no idea that cellar spiders even existed, thinking all of the things in my house were harvestmen. To answer your question, yes. That could be considered convergent evolution, as harvestmen are as closely related to a woodlouse as it is a spider, so they are quite different in genetics yet similar in appearance. They do have noticeable differences, as harvestmen have a single body segment, while cellar spiders (like all spiders) have two. Also, cellar spiders (unlike harvestmen) have venom glands and silk glands, so thats cool. Also, maybe this thread could be used to talk about convergent evolution, rather than focused on one topic - there’s a dedicated thread for quick questions:
The quick questions thread was originally meant for questions about thrive. Not just any old random stuff, but I’ve been allowing bunch of randomness in it. It would be better to have a separate quick science discussion thread and having wholly thrive unrelated thrive questions in the miscellaneous talk thread.
Huh. I think there was a recent ‘science thread’ for stuff like this. But my point was that its better to re use threads rather than make new ones with similar premises.