Palaeothele is an extinct genus of Mesothelae , with only one known species Palaeothele montceauensis.[ Two were found at Montceau-les-Mines, France, in ironstone concretion deposits of Late Carboniferous (Stephanian) age, about .][
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Taxonomy
The genus was first named as
Eothele by Paul A. Selden in 1996. However, this name had already been used for a
Cambrian brachiopod, so in 2000, Selden proposed the replacement name
Palaeothele.
Palaeothele is derived from the
Ancient Greek παλαιός, "ancient", and θηλή, "nipple" – a common ending for spider names, referring to their spinnerets.
[ The species name montceauensis refers to the location where the fossils were found.][
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Phylogeny
In 1996, Selden suggested the relationships shown in the cladogram below. (At the time, Attercopus was thought to be a spider; it is now considered to belong to a related but separate group, the Uraraneida.) Palaeothele is shown as sister to the modern genus Heptathela since they both have "tracheal sacs", structures adjacent to the posterior book lungs.[
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