A big , hairy spideris enough to give anyone a fright . So you’re able to guess what a curing of eight glowing eyes attached to a body like that might do to an arachnophobe ’s psyche . One such spider was discovered recently by researchers , but do n’t worry — the iridescent - eyed arachnid has been dead for 110 million yr .
AsPopular Sciencereports , this rare , ossified specimen was found in South Korea ’s Lower Cretaceous Jinju Formation . The find was unusual for a span of reasons . For one , spiders are not ordinarily conserve in stone because the indulgent - bodied creatures decay easily . It ’s also not every day that you see a long - dead wanderer with glowing eyes . On top of that , researchers found two well - preserved examples of these spiders , which weredescribedin a recent issue of theJournal of Systematic Palaeontology .
Both specimens belong toLagonomegopidae , an nonextant household that predated jumping spider . The glow is get by a layer of tissue calledtapetum lucidum , which coats the wanderer ’s eyes and reflect light , allowing the spider to hunt at night with ease . Many animalshave it — admit cats , domestic dog , horse , deer , raccoons , and some mod spiders — but this is the first paper to describe its existence in a fossilized wanderer . The tapetum is crescent - forge and “ looks a bit like a Canadian canoe , ” harmonise to Paul Selden , a geology prof at the University of Kansas and atomic number 27 - author of the newspaper .
“ Because these spider were uphold in strange silvery flecks on dour rock-and-roll , what was now obvious was their rather large center brightly marked with crescentic features , ” Selden said in astatement .
investigator now want to go back and take another look at exchangeable spiders preserved in amber , which are far more common than spiders fossilized in rock . The challenge is specify whether those specimens also have a layer of tapetum lucidum coat their eyes .
“ Amber fossils are beautiful , they look wonderful , but they preserve thing in a different way , ” Selden said . “ Now , we need to go back and calculate at the amber fossils and see if we can find the tapetum , which stares out at you from rock fogy but is n’t so obvious in amber ones because the modality of preservation is so different . ”
[ h / tPopular Science ]
