100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found In Amber - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com

YAHOO.COM - Researchers have found trapped in amber a rare dinosaur-age scene of a spider attacking a wasp caught in its web.

The piece of amber, which contains 15 intact strands of spider silk, provides the first fossil evidence of such an assault, the researchers said. It was excavated in a Burmese mine and dates back to the Early Cretaceous, between 97 million and 110 million years ago.

"This juvenile spider was going to make a meal out of a tiny parasitic wasp, but never quite got to it," George Poinar, Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said in a statement.

"This was a male wasp that suddenly found itself trapped in a spider web. This was the wasp's worst nightmare, and it never ended. The wasp was watching the spider just as it was about to be attacked, when tree resin flowed over and captured both of them." click here to read more