Trapped in Amber-140m-year-old spider's web dating back to dinosaurs is the great new discovery by fossils hunters. Fossil hunters keep finding new things which give us an idea about life on the Earth. Amber is an organic gemstone which gives us the most authentic and beautiful picture of the history of the Earth. Amber is basically a resin of a tree. Unlike other minerals and gemstones, this is the remaining of tree resin which takes million years to form. Other gemstones and minerals are formed inside the earth in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.
Recently scientists got one of the rarest ambers with having spiderweb trapped inside. After doing experiments in the lab, now they are sure of its date which is 140 million years ago. This belongs to the ancestor of modern ord - weaving spiders.
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Scientists are of sure that amber deposit has the threads belonging from the Sussex coast which are the world's oldest known spider webs. They are dating back to 140 million years ago. Photo: NATIONAL PICTURES[/caption]
The scientist got this amber in the last December. Two fossil hunter brothers Jamie and Jonathan Hiscocks on a beach near Bexhill-on-Sea in the South of England found this amber. They accidentally got this piece on the beach. They told on BBC. The beach is already famous for tracking fossilized dinosaur.
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Research Paper on the Enantiornithine (Baby Bird caught 99 Million years ago in Burmese amber)[/caption]
Scientists sliced the amber into thin sections to examine the pieces under a high powered microscope. They found after studying that the ancient finding is similar to that modern orb web spiders which usually weave spiral skill in order to get insect prey. The amber was given to palaeobiologist Professor Martin Brasier. The Professor findings are published already in the Journal of the Geological Society.
The tiny tangled filaments date back 140 million years and are linked to each other in the roughly circular pattern familiar to gardeners everywhere.
According to Prof Brasier, of the University of Oxford:
"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."
This new discovery will give new points to the history of life on the Earth. This is first time caught in the fossil which belongs to the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs psittacosaurs and spinosaurs used to be on the Earth. Spiderweb thread is a very delicate material which is hardly preserved in fossils amber.
spider-16x-20 “Silk is a relatively delicate material and it is rarely preserved in the fossil record, except when entombed in amber,”
Prof Brasier said.