Arthropods in culture Arthropods in culture Culture consists of the social behaviour and norms in human societies transmitted through social learning. Arthropods play many roles in human culture, including as food, in art, in stories, and in mythology and religion. Many of these concern insects, which are important both economically and symbolically, from the work of honeybees to the scarabs of Ancient Egypt. Other arthropods with cultural significance include crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters, and crayfish, which are popular subjects in art, especially still lifes, and arachnids such as spiders and scorpions, whose venom has medical applications. The crab and the scorpion are
Opabinia unusual lateral lobes with gills persuaded him that it may have been a representative of the ancestral stock from which both the annelids and arthropods arose. In 1985 Derek Briggs and Whittington published a description of "Anomalocaris", also from the Burgess Shale. Swedish palaeontologist Jan Bergström suggested that the two animals were related, as they shared lateral flaps with gills, stalked eyes and other features; and he classified them as primitive arthropods, although he considered that arthropods are not a single phylum. In 1996 Graham Budd found what he considered evidence of short, un-jointed legs in "Opabinia". His examination of