A subphylum of the phylum Arthropoda. The Chelicerata can be defined as those arthropods with the anteriormost appendages as a pair of small pincers (chelicerae) followed usually by pedipalps and four pairs of walking legs, and with the body divided into two parts: the prosoma (corresponding approximately to the cephalothorax of many crustaceans) and the opisthosoma (or abdomen). There are never antennae or mandibles (lateral jaws). The Chelicerata comprise three classes: the enormous group Arachnida (spiders, ticks, mites, scorpions, and related forms); the Pycnogonida (sea spiders or nobody-crabs); and the Merostomata (including the Xiphosurida or horseshoe crabs).
Both Merostomata and Pycnogonida are marine, but the enormous numbers and varied forms of the Arachnida are almost entirely terrestrial. The respiratory structures of chelicerates include gills, book-lungs, and tracheae. Sexes are normally separate, with genital openings at the anterior end of the opisthosoma. Some mites and other small chelicerates are omnivorous scavengers, but the majority of species of larger chelicerates are predaceous carnivores at relatively high trophic levels in their particular ecotopes. See Arthropoda
a subphylum of invertebrates of the phylum Arthropoda. The body consists of a cephalothorax (prosoma) with six pairs of appendages (chelicerae, pedipalps, and four pairs of legs) and an abdomen (opisthosoma), on which there are appendages only in Xiphosura. Antennae are absent. In many mites and ticks the number of legs is reduced.
Fossil aquatic Chelicerata are known from the Cambrian, and terrestrial species are known from the Devonian. The subphylum includes two classes: Merostomata, which live only in seas, and Arachnoidea, which are mainly terrestrial.