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The range of DNA sequences used to study the interrelationships of the major arthropod groups (chelicerates, myriapods, hexapods and crustaceans) is limited. Here we investigate the value of two genes not previously employed in arthropod phylogenetics. Histone H3 data were collected for 31 species and small nuclear ribonucleic acid U2 data for 29 species. The sequences provided a total of 460 sites and 192 parsimony-informative characters. H3 analyses showed substantial codon usage bias, but had a low consistency index (0.26). Consistency indices were higher for the U2 data (0.49), suggesting that the class of snRNAs may provide several phylogenetically useful genes. The present data are not by themselves sufficient to clarify major arthropod group relationships. Partitioned data for H3 and U2 are incongruent according to Incongruence Length Difference tests. Although the most parsimonious trees …