Palaeontology

Spider with a tail found preserved in amber

By T.K. Randall
February 5, 2018 ·  12 comments

It turns out that spiders once had tails. Image Credit: University of Kansas For those terrified of spiders - be thankful that we still don't have these creatures running around.

Found in Myanmar within a piece of amber, this peculiar 'chimera' species is described as such because it appears to possess a combination of both primitive and modern body parts.

In addition to fangs, feelers and silk-producing spinnerets, this prehistoric creepy-crawly also possessed a long tail similar to those found in uraraneids - a type of ancient spider relative.Scientists believe that the species, named Chimerarachne yingi, could actually be a missing link.

"It's a very primitive group and their relatives were present more than 250 million years ago," said Bo Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing.

"Maybe the tail originally had a sensory function; it is covered in short hairs, but when spiders changed to lifestyles like being sit-and-wait predators, the tail was no longer really needed and became lost."

Spider's with tails? Things really were better in the past https://t.co/oPQoxsrKBO

— Sheldon K. Goodman (@SheldonKGoodman) February 5, 2018

Source: The Guardian | Comments (12)

Tags: Spider, Scorpion, Amber