Threatened arthropods and described. The total number of living arthropod species is probably in the tens of millions. One conservative estimate puts the number of arthropod species in tropical forests alone at six to nine million species. As a consequence of all of the above, most published estimates of the total number of endangered insects and arachnids are probably low by at least an order of magnitude. Conservatively at least eighty percent of all living animal species are arthropods. Since arthropods constitute the majority of the faunal biomass on Earth, their role is vital to the survival of large numbers of insectivores
Diania as the armoured Lobopodia. These have long been assumed to be related in some way to Arthropoda and it seems likely that arthropods evolved from somewhere within this group. However, all previously discovered lobopodians showed soft, rather ring-like, but not segmented legs. The significance of "Diania" is that it is a lobopodian which appears to have evolved the name-giving character of the arthropods: jointed legs. In the original description of the fossil the authors suggested that "Diania" could be the sister group of "Schinderhannes" and the remaining arthropods, but discussed the possibility that it may be a more primitive form