First description of epimorphic development in Antarctic Pallenopsidae (Arthropoda, Pycnogonida) with insights into the evolution of the four-articled sea spider cheliphore

BACKGROUND: Sea spiders (Pycnogonida) are an abundant faunal element of the Southern Ocean (SO). Several recent phylogeographical studies focused on the remarkably diverse SO pycnogonid fauna, resulting in the identification of new species in previously ill-defined species complexes, insights into their genetic population substructures, and hypotheses on glacial refugia and recolonization events after the last ice age. However, knowledge on the life history of many SO pycnogonids is fragmentary, and early ontogenetic stages often remain poorly documented. This impedes assessing the impact of different developmental pathways on pycnogonid dispersal and distributions and also hinders pycnogonid-wide comparison of developmental features from a phylogenetic-evolutionary angle. RESULTS: Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fluorescent nuclear staining, we studied embryonic stages and postembryonic instars of three SO representatives of the taxon Pallenopsidae (Pallenopsis villosa, P. hodgsoni, P. vanhoeffeni), the development of which being largely unknown. The eggs are large and yolk-rich, and the hatching stage is an advanced lecithotrophic instar that stays attached to the father for additional molts. The first free-living instar is deduced to possess at least three functional walking leg pairs. Despite gross morphological similarities between the congeners, each instar can be reliably assigned to a species based on body size, shape of ocular tubercle and proboscis, structure of the attachment gland processes, and seta patterns on cheliphore and walking legs. CONCLUSIONS: We encourage combination of SEM with fluorescent markers in developmental studies on ethanol-preserved and/or long term-stored pycnogonid material, as this reveals internal differentiation processes in addition to external morphology. Using this approach, we describe the first known cases of pallenopsid development with epimorphic tendencies, which stand in contrast to the small hatching larvae in other Pallenopsidae. Evaluation against current phylogenetic hypotheses indicates multiple gains of epimorphic development within Pycnogonida. Further, we suggest that the type of development may impact pycnogonid distribution ranges, since free-living larvae potentially have a better dispersal capability than lecithotrophic attaching instars. Finally, we discuss the bearing of pycnogonid cheliphore development on the evolution of the raptorial first limb pair in Chelicerata and support a multi-articled adult limb as the plesiomorphic state of the chelicerate crown group, arising ontogenetically via postembryonic segmentation of a three-articled embryonic limb. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40851-018-0118-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.