Pygidial Sentence Examples

But most important of the evidences presented by the trilobites of affinity with Limulus, and therefore with the Arachnida, is the tendency less marked in some, strongly carried out in others, to form a pygidial or telsonic shield - a fusion of the posterior somites of the body, which is precisely identical in character with the metasomatic carapace of Limulus.

On the other hand, it may well be doubted whether the pygidial or posterior carapace is primarily due to a fusion of the tergites of somites which were previously movable and well developed.

A character of great diagnostic value in the more primitive Arachnida is the tendency of the chitinous investment of the tergal surface of the telson to unite during growth with that of the free somites in front of it, so as to form a pygidial shield or posterior carapace, often comprising as many as fifteen somites (Trilobites, Limulus).

A characteristic, comparable in value to that presented by the pygidial shield of Arachnida, is the frequent development of a pair of long appendages by the penultimate somite, which with the telson form a trifid, or, when that is small, a bifid termination to the body.