Ancient Spiderlike Fossil

A 305 million-year-old creature that lived alongside the oldest known ancestors of modern spiders was discovered by scientists.

21:43 31 March 2016

A 305 million-year-old fossil of the closest relative to “true spiders” has been discovered decades ago in France. The 1.5cm creature lived alongside the oldest known ancestors of modern spiders but is not exactly a spider.

 

First author Russell Garwood from the University of Manchester, said: "This fossil is the most closely related thing we have to a spider that isn't a spider.”

 

"The earliest known spider is actually from the same fossil deposit - and it definitely has spinnerets. So what we're actually looking at is an extinct lineage that split off the spider line some time before 305 million years ago, and those two have evolved in parallel."

 

Using a CT scan, the team has confirmed that the animal had eight spidery limbs and imposing jaws, which proves that it was a new species and not one of the more distant cousins of spiders known from the same period. Just like Attercopus, a long-extinct arachnid family, the fossil also did not show tail-like appendage and spinnerets that allow spiders to weave webs.