Spinning Tales ~ the 140 Million Year Old Spider Web

Humans were certainly not around when dinosaurs reigned, but apparently spiders were.

The Telegraph.uk.co is reporting that a fossil hunter has discovered what looks to be a spider web. (I don't see it, but it might be the photos that leave me clueless.)

The report says:

The amber was found by an amateur fossil hunter whilst looking for dinosaur remains, and was handed over to palaeobiologist Professor Martin Brasier whose findings are published in the the Journal of the Geological Society.

The tiny threads about 1 millimetre (1/20th of an inch) long are held in suspension amid bits of burnt sap and fossilized vegetable matter.

Prof Brasier, of the University of Oxford, said: "This amber is very rare. It comes from the very base of the Cretaceous period, which makes it one of the oldest ambers anywhere to have inclusions in it."

As well as threads of spider webs the amber contains plant matter, insect droppings and ancient microbes that were trapped during the early Cretaceous Period, a time when the world was a much warmer place, and dinosaurs such as the Iguanodon and the Allosaurus were in their prime.