Very usually (but not in the Onychophora = Peripatus) all the parapodia are plated with chitin secreted by the epidermis, and divided into a series of joints - giving the " arthropodous " or hinged character.
In Diplopoda (Julus, &c.) the results of embryological study point to a composition of the front part of the head exactly similar to that which we find in Onychophora.
It may be pointed out that the most radical difference presented in this list is that between appendages consisting of the corm alone without rami (Onychophora) and those with more or less developed rami (the rest of the Arthropoda).
The Arthropod eye appears to be an organ of special character developed in the common ancestor of the Euarthropoda, and distinct from the Chaetopod eye, which is found only in the Onychophora where the true Arthropod eye is absent.
We are also, by the isolation of Peripatus and the impossibility of tracing to it all other tracheate Arthropoda, or of regarding it as a degenerate offset from some one of the tracheate classes, forced to the conclusion that the tracheae of the Onychophora have been independently acquired.