ARTICLE Received 14 Jan 2013 | Accepted 21 Aug 2013 | Published 30 Sep 2013 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3485 Arthropod fossil data increase congruence of morphological and molecular phylogenies David A. Legg1,2,3, Mark D. Sutton1 & Gregory D. Edgecombe2 The relationships of major arthropod clades have long been contentious, but refinements in molecular phylogenetics underpin an emerging consensus. Nevertheless, molecular phylogenies have recovered topologies that morphological phylogenies have not, including the placement of hexapods within a paraphyletic Crustacea, and an alliance between myriapods and chelicerates. Here we show enhanced congruence between molecular and morphological phylogenies based on 753 morphological characters for 309 fossil and Recent panarthropods. We resolve hexapods within Crustacea, with remipedes as their closest extant relatives, and show that the traditionally close relationship between myriapods and hexapods is an artefact of convergent character acquisition during terrestrialisation. The inclusion of fossil morphology mitigates long-branch artefacts as exemplified by pycnogonids: when fossils are included, they resolve with euchelicerates rather than as a sister taxon to all other euarthropods. 1 Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK. 2 Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. 3 Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford OX1 3PW, UK. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.A.L. (email:
[email protected]). NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 4:2485 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3485 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 & 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3485 rthropods are diverse, disparate, abundant and ubiqui- including all major extinct and extant panarthropod groups.