In Berlin, a curator of Arachnida and Myriapoda at the Museum für Naturkunde has identified a spider species held in the museum for many years. According to him, this remnant is the oldest spider fossil ever found in Germany.
Ghastly Spider Unearthed
The fossil was excavated four years ago at Piesberg quarry near Osnabrück, Germany, by geoscientist Tim Wolterbeek from Universiteit Utrecht. It was donated to the museum where Dunlop studied the ancient spider.
By investigating the other material in the strata where the fossil was found, it was revealed that the spider dated 310 to 315 million years ago. This makes it a member of the Paleozoic era and the first to have been found in Germany from that period in history, the next oldest coming from the Jurassic age.
Further analysis showed that the fossil was still in excellent condition and nearly complete, with its spinnerets or silk-producing organs still visible. The spider likely measures one centimeter long, but fossilization would have made it shrink. The fossilization of the specimen might be due to extraordinary events, as suggested by its physical features.
How Was Its Ancient Lifestyle Like?
The spider was revealed to be a new species named Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki after the man who discovered it. It could have also belonged to the order Araneae which separates it from other groups that resemble spiders.
Spiders as old as Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki are rare, with only a dozen Carboniferous species resembling the brown recluse spider, which exists in our modern times. Some are in the Czech Republic, France, the USA, and Poland.
Over 51,000 species of spiders have been identified worldwide, and a thousand thrive in Germany. Spiders are widespread and abundant today but do not seem common 300 million years ago. Dunlop believes that the major evolutionary division of spiders into modern groups might have started later in the Mesozoic era. Perhaps they had begun alongside insects when the arachnids started to build various webs to hunt an increasing number of insects that fly from the air.
The discovered spider was likely male despite the absence of a palpal bulb. This is because females of its kind would most likely have been passive.
Dunlop also estimates that the legs were possibly four centimeters long when the arachnid was still alive. It also possessed a segmented abdomen, marking it as a member of the "limb spiders" of its time. Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki is likely burrow-dwelling, which limits its contact with water.
According to Dunlop, if fossils like Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki had a similar lifestyle to modern spiders, they may occasionally venture out of their habitat. They would rarely have fallen into the water, where they could be kept as fossils.
It is suggested that the area where the spider was found was forested when the animal was alive. This made Dunlop assume that the arachnid spun its web on the forest floor, expecting to hunt smaller prey with its tripwires.
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