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Blobrana


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RE: Spiders in Amber
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Fossil of ancient spider attack only one of its type ever discovered

Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attack on prey caught in its web - a 100 million-year-old snapshot of an engagement frozen in time.
The extraordinarily rare fossils are in a piece of amber that preserved this event in remarkable detail, an action that took place in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar in the Early Cretaceous between 97-110 million years ago, almost certainly with dinosaurs wandering nearby.
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Blobrana


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Thrips pollination
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Title: Thrips pollination of Mesozoic gymnosperms
Authors: Enrique Peñalver, Conrad C. Labandeira, Eduardo Barrón, Xavier Delclòs, Patricia Nel, André Nel, Paul Tafforeau, and Carmen Soriano

Within modern gymnosperms, conifers and Ginkgo are exclusively wind pollinated whereas many gnetaleans and cycads are insect pollinated. For cycads, thrips are specialized pollinators. We report such a specialised pollination mode from Early Cretaceous amber of Spain, wherein four female thrips representing a genus and two species in the family Melanthripidae were covered by abundant Cycadopites pollen grains. These females bear unique ring setae interpreted as specialised structures for pollen grain collection, functionally equivalent to the hook-tipped sensilla and plumose setae on the bodies of bees. The most parsimonious explanation for this structure is parental food provisioning for larvae, indicating subsociality. This association provides direct evidence of specialised collection and transportation of pollen grains and likely gymnosperm pollination by 110-105 million years ago, possibly considerably earlier.

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Blobrana


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Insects in Amber
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 Scientists discover first ever record of insect pollination from 100 million-years ago.

Amber from Cretaceous deposits (110-105 my) in Northern Spain has revealed the first ever record of insect pollination. Scientists have discovered several specimens of tiny insects covered with pollen grains in two pieces of amber, revealing the first record of pollen transport and social behaviour in this group of animals. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Science (PNAS) dated 14-18 May 2012.
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Blobrana


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Amber reveals ancient insects

Amber is the fossilised resin of trees and often contains trapped insects which can be 100 million years old. David Grimaldi shows us some amber from Myanmar. Each piece contains the remains of plants and insects. Some insects can get trapped, others use it to build nests. And some get engulfed in it. If trapped, the insects can be perfectly preserved providing a window on life often 100 million years ago. Amber has helped track the evolution of ants. After evolving about 120 million years ago, for the first 50 or 60 million years, ants were primitive and rare. Then, there was an explosion in their abundance and diversity.
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Blobrana


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New Window Into Tropical Eocene: 50 Million Year Old Amber From India

At least 100 bees, termites, spiders, and flies - all 50-52 million years old - are challenging the assumption that India was an isolated island-continent in the Early Eocene. The Cambay amber contains arthropods that not unique - as would be expected on an island - but rather have close evolutionary relationships with fossils from Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
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Blobrana


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Ethiopian Amber Deposit
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New Insects, Bacteria Uncovered in Dinosaur-Era Amber Deposit

A 95-million-year-old amber deposit uncovered in Ethiopia, the first major discovery of its kind from the African continent, is helping scientists reconstruct an ancient tropical forest and gain new insights into an ecosystem once shared by dinosaurs.
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Blobrana


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Eoplectreurys gertschi
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Scientists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved spider fossil in China dating back to the middle Jurassic era, 165 million years ago. The fossilised spiders, Eoplectreurys gertschi, are older than the only two other specimens known by around 120 million years.
The level of detail preserved in the fossils is amazing, said paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and lead author of the study appearing Feb. 6 in Naturwissenschaften.
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Blobrana


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Spider's web in Amber
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Spider webs encased in amber which were discovered on an East Sussex beach have been confirmed by scientists as being the world's oldest on record.
The amber, which was found in Bexhill by fossil hunter Jamie His****s and his brother Jonathan, dates back 140 million years to the Cretaceous period.

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Blobrana


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Fossil hunter finds 140 million-year-old spider's web
The world's oldest spider web spun when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth has been found encased in a Prehistoric piece of amber from a beach in the south of England.

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Blobrana


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Spiders
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Early relatives of spiders that lived around 300 million years ago are revealed in new three-dimensional models, in research published today in the journal Biology Letters.
Scientists at Imperial College London have created detailed 3D computer models of two fossilised specimens of ancient creatures called Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, closely related to modern-day spiders. The study reveals some of the physical traits that helped them to hunt for prey and evade predators.

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