Guilherme Gainett, then a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was looking through a microscope at the embryo of a daddy longlegs when he saw it — or, rather, saw them. Daddy longlegs, the group of splendidly leggy arachnids also known as harvestmen, have been thought to have just two eyes. Arachnids include spiders, scorpions, harvestmen and other arthropods, and divining the relationships among this sprawling group of organisms is tricky. For the current study, Dr. Gainett used fluorescent tags to study the development of harvestman eyes. These findings suggest that the neural architecture that handles the daddy longlegs’ vision may be quite old.

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Persons: Guilherme Gainett, Daddy longlegs, Gainett, Prashant Sharma Organizations: University of Wisconsin, Boston Children’s Hospital Locations: Madison