Spiders Invented Knees
Discovery News
Spiders were the first creatures on Earth to evolve knees, according to a new study that also explains how this happened.
Knees began as a gene in fruit flies and other insects that duplicated and evolved in spiders, resulting in primary leg joints, reports the study, published in the journal
“Species constantly adapt and evolve by inventing new body features,” lead author Nikola-Michael Prpic of the Göttingen Center for Molecular Biosciences explained in a press release.
Prpic and his colleagues focused their work on a particular gene called dachshund, or dac for short. The name reflects a bit of nerd humor, because the gene was first discovered in fruit flies, and was named for the missing leg segments and shortened legs that result from dac mutant flies.
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