Palaeopantopus maucheri
| Palaeopantopus maucheri | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Devonian , Emsium | ||||||||||||
| 407 to 397.5 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Palaeopantopus maucheri | ||||||||||||
| Broili , 1930 | ||||||||||||
Palaeopantopus maucheri is an extinct woodlice spider , which has been identified with four specimens in the Bundenbach Hunsrück slate. It is one of the rarest fossils of this fauna.
Ferdinand Broili provided the first evidence on the basis of two finds in 1929, the first description then followed in 1930.
As part of his X-ray examinations, Stürmer found another copy in the Humboldt Museum's holdings, and Bartels then found another on a scrap piece. Palaeopantopus maucheri reached a diameter of almost ten centimeters with outstretched legs . It is assumed that the locomotion is slow on the sea floor, and that the body does not adapt to a swimming lifestyle. Despite a new examination in 1980 by Jan Bergström , Wilhelm Stürmer and Gerhard Winter , the identification of the chelicerae was still pending, after a new find in the supine position, these, which turned out to be very small, have now been identified.