"Zeger Knaepen" <zeg### [at] yahoocom> wrote :
>
> I was tought (sp?) that those claws were legs, like our arms.  Should I
sue
> the teacher?

    In the process of writing my universal insect include file (due to be
released in 2010), I came up with a concept that seems to work. Imagine a
segmented worm with legs like a caterpillar. It learns to balance on three
or four segments and those segments develop larger legs. The left over legs
become adapted for other things, those closer to the mouth become food
gathering and manipulating appendages and those closer to the other end
become waste handlers, sex tools, defensive stings, what ever. So they
were -all- legs once. If you look closely at the mouth parts, they have the
same basic structure as the legs. Are they legs? If so then claws are legs.

    Something that does not bear much visualizing. Insects, arachnids and
crustaceans are only slight variations from a similar model. In other words,
shrimp, lobsters and crabs are bugs.

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