Ancient spider fossils have reflective eyes (earthsky.org)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Eleanor Imster in Earth | February 16, 2019

A new paper describes a remarkable set of fossil spiders found in South Korea. Two of the fossils – from an extinct spider family called Lagonomegopidae that lived between 110 and 113 million years ago – feature reflective eyes for nighttime hunting.

University of Kansas paleontologist Paul Selden is co-author of the paper, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology on January 28, 2019. Seldon said in a statement:

Because these spiders were preserved in strange silvery flecks on dark rock, what was immediately obvious was their rather large eyes brightly marked with crescentic features. I realized this must have been the tapetum — that’s a reflective structure in an inverted eye where light comes in and is reverted back into retina cells. This is unlike a straightforward eye where light goes through and doesn’t have a reflective characteristic.

Selden said that some contemporary spiders feature eyes with a tapetum, but the new paper is the first to describe the anatomical feature in a fossilized spider. He said:

In spiders, the ones you see with really big eyes are jumping spiders, but their eyes are regular eyes – whereas wolf spiders at nighttime, you see their eyes reflected in light like cats. So, night-hunting predators tend to use this different kind of eye. This was the first time a tapetum had been in found in a fossil. This tapetum was canoe-shaped – it looks a bit like a Canadian canoe. That will help us place this group of spiders among other families.

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more: https://earthsky.org/earth/ancient-spider-fossils-reflective-eyes

[DontBooVote]

1. Yeesh! That thing gives me the willies from 110 million years away.

I wonder how big it was.

[MFM008]

2. Thats how i like

My spiders....fossilized.