''Tarsopterella'' is a genus of prehistoric

eurypterid Eurypterids, often informally called sea scorpions, are a group of extinct marine arthropods that form the Order (biology), order Eurypterida. The earliest known eurypterids date to the Darriwilian stage of the Ordovician period, 467.3 Myr, mil ...

classified within the family

Hardieopteridae The Hardieopteridae are a family of eurypterids, an extinct group of chelicerate arthropods commonly known as "sea scorpions". The family is one of two families contained in the superfamily Kokomopteroidea (along with Kokomopteridae), which in t ...

. It contains only one

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, ''T. scotica'' from the

Lower Devonian The Early Devonian is the first of three epochs comprising the Devonian period, corresponding to the Lower Devonian series. It lasted from and began with the Lochkovian Stage , which was followed by the Pragian from and then by the Emsian, whic ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

.Dunlop, J. A., Penney, D. & Jekel, D. 2015. A summary list of fossil spiders and their relatives. In World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern, online at http://wsc.nmbe.ch , version 16.0 http://www.wsc.nmbe.ch/resources/fossils/Fossils16.0.pdf (PDF).

Description

''Tarsopterella'' is distinguished by its prosoma (head), which is subrectangular and slightly concave in front, with small compound eyes. Its abdomen has pronounced lateral epimera (marginal spines similar to those of horseshoe crabs). ''Tarsopterella'' dates from the Lower Devonian period. 1955. Merostomata. ''Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part P Arthropoda 2, Chelicerata'', P38-P39.

References

Stylonurina Devonian eurypterids Prehistoric life of Europe Eurypterids of Europe {{Eurypterid-stub