Insects are flying shrimps, myriapods are arthropod snakes — towards a new synthesis

Abstract

The first Atelocerata were machilid-like insects descended from Palaeocaridacea (Malacostraca Syncarida) via neoteny, homeosis and gamoheterotopy. In these littoral hoppers, the five posterior segments of the malacostracan thorax were repatterned after abdominal ones to maintain the caridoid escape reaction at uncompensated gravity out of water. Their modified gonopods were shifted caudally and transferred from males to females to form an ovipositor. The vigorously flexing abdomen turned useless in cryptic habitats and was homeotically repatterned after the thorax in myriapods, which evolved as litter creepers from bristletail ancestors via entognathous hexapods.