Arthropods in film Arthropods in film Arthropods, mainly insects and arachnids, are used in film either to create fear and disgust in horror and thriller movies, or they are anthropomorphized and used as sympathetic characters in animated children's movies. There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropods, including such familiar animals as ants, spiders, shrimps, crabs and butterflies. Early 20th century films had difficulty featuring small insects due to technical difficulties in film-stock exposure and the quality of lenses available. Horror movies involving arthropods include the pioneering 1954 "Them!", featuring giant ants mutated by radiation, and the 1957 "The Deadly Mantis". Films based on
Arthropod gills that were very different from those of arthropods. This reasoning implies that "Parapeytoia", which has legs and a backward-pointing mouth like that of the earliest arthropods, is a more credible closest relative of arthropods than is "Anomalocaris". In 2006, they suggested that arthropods were more closely related to lobopods and tardigrades than to anomalocarids. In 2014, research indicated that tardigrades were more closely related to arthropods than velvet worms. Higher up the "family tree", the Annelida have traditionally been considered the closest relatives of the Panarthropoda, since both groups have segmented bodies, and the combination of these groups was