{"id":474905,"date":"2025-12-27T11:56:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/474905\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T11:56:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:56:31","slug":"scientists-discover-spider-fossils-one-with-glowing-eyes-that-have-survived-for-110-million-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/474905\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover Spider Fossils, One with Glowing Eyes, That Have Survived for 110 Million Years!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a remarkable discovery, researchers have unearthed 10 new species of fossilized spiders<\/strong> from the Mesozoic era, including one whose eyes still reflect light, 110 million years after its death. This rare find, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology<\/strong>, discovered by researchers from the Korea Polar Research Institute and the University of Kansas, have expanded our understanding of ancient eight-legged creature. While many of these species are similar to those known today, the preservation of their eyes presents an extraordinary insight into the evolutionary adaptations of these creatures.<\/p>\n

A Window Into the Past: The Jinju Formation\u2019s Fossils<\/p>\n

The Jinju Formation in South Korea, which dates back to the Mesozoic era, has long been known as a rich source of fossils<\/strong>, but the preservation of soft-bodied creatures has been a rare occurrence. Unlike bones or hard exoskeletons<\/strong>, the delicate bodies of spiders are difficult to preserve. <\/p>\n

\"FossilizedFossilized spider from the Cretaceous period, showing exceptional detail preserved in rock. Credit: Paul Selden<\/p>\n

However, researchers from the Korea Polar Research Institute and the University of Kansas discovered 10 new species of creepy-crawlers preserved in shale, a rare condition that allowed for the detailed preservation of their soft bodies. According to Paul Selden<\/a>, a geologist at the University of Kansas, this discovery is exciting because it opens a new window into the Cretaceous period\u2019s spider diversity. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBecause these spiders were preserved in strange slivery flecks on dark rock, what was immediately obvious was their rather large eyes brightly marked with crescentic features,\u201d he explained in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fossilized Spiders with Eyes That Still Reflect Light<\/p>\n

What sets this discovery apart is the preservation of a tapetum<\/strong> in the eyes of two of the newly discovered spiders. The tapetum is a reflective layer found in the eyes <\/a>of many nocturnal animals, like cats, which helps them see in low light, and this was the first time a tapetum had been identified in fossilized spiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo of the Korean fossils revealed reflective eyes. Credit: Paul Selden<\/p>\n

The preservation of these reflective eye structures suggests that these spiders, like some modern-day species, may have been nocturnal hunters. As Selden explains:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI realized this must have been the tapetum \u2014 that\u2019s a reflective structure in an inverted eye where light comes in and is reverted back into retina cells,\u201d he added, \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have exceptionally well-preserved features of internal anatomy like eye structure. It\u2019s really not often you get something like that preserved in a fossil.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Expanding the Cretaceous Web: A New Era in Arachnid Discovery<\/p>\n

According to the research, published in the\u00a0Journal of Systematic Palaeontology<\/a>, the eight-legged creatures from this era are rarely preserved in fossil records<\/a>, making this find particularly important for paleontologists. By identifying 10 new species<\/strong>, the researchers have greatly expanded the known diversity of funnel-web spiders from this time. Selden notes that these creatures, particularly those with the tapetum, likely occupied ecological niches similar to those of modern-day jumping arachnids.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is an extinct family of spiders that were clearly very common in the Cretaceous and were occupying niches now occupied by jumping spiders that didn\u2019t evolve until later,\u201d he explained.\u201cBut these spiders were doing things differently. Their eye structure is different from jumping spiders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The next step for researchers is to revisit amber-preserved spiders, more common than rock fossils, to investigate whether they too have a tapetum lucidum layer in their eyes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAmber fossils <\/a>are beautiful, they look wonderful, but they preserve things in a different way,\u201d Selden stated. \u201cNow, we want to go back and look at the amber fossils and see if we can find the tapetum, which stares out at you from rock fossils but isn\u2019t so obvious in amber ones because the mode of preservation is so different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a remarkable discovery, researchers have unearthed 10 new species of fossilized spiders from the Mesozoic era, including…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":474906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-474905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115791410260005077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}