Fossil hunters in Korea discovered long-dead spiders preserved in rock. And to the delight of scientists, the arachnids' eyes are still reflective -- some 110 million years after the creatures died.
It's rare for insects and arachnids -- which are far more brittle than shelled sea creatures -- to become fossilized in rocks. But for reasons still unknown, a couple of these spiders did fossilize, and the unique shape of their eye structures continue to reflect light -- even in their petrified form.
The reflective eye structure is called a tapetum, and it's often used by creatures who hunt in the dark.
"So, night-hunting predators tend to use this different kind of eye," Paul Selden, director of the Paleontological Institute at Kansas University's Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, said in a statement. "This was the first time a tapetum had been in found a fossil. This tapetum was canoe-shaped — it looks a bit like a Canadian canoe."
Today's wolf spiders employ the same eye structures to hunt, Selden added.
A mystery still remains, however: How did the spiders become fossilized? Their petrified bodies were found in a layer of rock filled with fish and other sea critters -- but spiders don't dwell in water.
“It has to be a very special situation where they were washed into a body of water," Selden said. "Normally, they’d float. But here, they sunk, and that kept them away from decaying bacteria — it may have been a low-oxygen condition."
Selden and his Korean colleagues -- who actually discovered the ancient spiders -- now get to name the curious fossils. They were only found because Korean land is often excavated, so scientists and the fossil-curious dig in to see what ancient novelties are hidden in Earth's crust.
"So, they carve away the hillsides to make a flat area, and there are temporary excavations while they’re cutting away and building a factory or whatever — that’s where they found these fossils," said Selden.
Topics Animals
