3199: Early Arthropods

Early Arthropods

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Title text: 'Ugh, I'm never going to be like spiders. My descendants will all just be normal arthropods who mind their own busines and don't do anything weird.' --The ancestor of a bunch of eusocial insects

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Explanation

This is one of 59 incomplete explanations: This page was created by an arthropod who will get 10 pointy things to zap a metal box and tell it stuff.. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic points out that something we generally take for granted — spiders spinning webs — can seem weird and disgusting when we consider the details of what it involves. Whereas the kind of adaptation referred to by the first arthropod (seen in isopods) and by the second (scorpions or crabs) may seem like obvious things for evolution to arrive at, it may be less clear how something would arrive at the outcome of web construction.

Note that evolution in real life does not work the way the comic implies, as creatures cannot decide which direction in which to evolve.^{[citation needed]}

Spiders are a recurring theme on xkcd.

Crabs are a recurring theme in biology. (and conversations with Randall)

The eusocial insects mentioned in the title text are another group of arthropods with high levels of social organisation. As such, they are notable for not "minding their own busines (sic)", as their ancestor arthropod apparently expects. Eusociality has evolved multiple times in the Hymenoptera alone, as well as in termites. There is no arthropod species that is the ancestor to all the eusocial arthropods and no others. While there are a number of species of social spider, there aren't any that meet the strict definition of eusociality. Eusocial insects have been known to do weird things, such as giving birth to a separate species.

Transcript

This is one of 39 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Wide panel with three small arthropods standing on the ocean floor. Two of the creatures are facing the leftmost one. Small bubbles and particles float around them.]

Arthropod 1: Now that we're multicellular, what are your plans?

Arthropod 1: I'm gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them!

Arthropod 2: I'm gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff!

Arthropod 3: I'm gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals.

[Beat panel narrowed in on the arthropods.]

[Same scene:]

Arthropod 1: Dude.

Arthropod 2: Can you please just be normal about this?

Arthropod 3: What??!

Trivia

"Business" is misspelled in the title text as "busines".

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Discussion

Edit conflict on the transcript. Whoops! —megan talk contribs 00:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

there is a typo in title text, i wonder if it will be corrected 2A02:A31A:E2CD:5300:5450:CAAA:3F64:5EE5 01:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

First - 45.178.1.151 01:08, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Firster 82.13.184.33 10:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Early Cnidarians:

"I'm going to be the biggest quilt-shaped bag of cells I can be!"

"I'm going to evolve special stinging cells!"

"I'm going to use epigenetics to lock my cells into lifelong somatic roles, and then they can use synaptic learning in their newly stable neural nets to develop novel behaviors by learning from their environment, and eventually one of my descendants will invent machines that they can publish webcomics on!" Cphoenix (talk) 04:37, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

"I'm going to hang out in space and use my body to spell out intimidating messages before attacking and devouring my victims" 82.13.184.33 10:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Ooh someone else saw that paper about ants giving birth to ants of other species!! SO weird! 160.39.41.199 04:44, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

At least one species of fly also uses strings covered with glue to trap prey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa_luminosa. Nitpicking (talk) 12:20, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

At least one species of ape does too. (Well, OK, not so much 'prey'...) 82.13.184.33 16:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

But is he strong? 2601:246:4A00:3E80:7401:681F:825E:AF7E 17:27, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Listen, bud... He's got radioactive blood! 81.179.199.253 19:46, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
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