Spiders in Amber
Here's some photos of spiders found in amber. Viewers are invited to send in their photos. Some of the photos are from the Chiapas highlands near the town of Simojovelamber. Chiapas amber is between 22 million and 26 million years old and comes from the resin of the Hymenaea Leguminoseae tree. These beautiful pieces of amber may be purchased from Glen Osborne's website at http://chiapasambercreations.com. More information on spiders in amber may be found here. All photos are copyright to their owners and may not be reproduced without permission. Click for a larger view.
From a Viewer:
23 August, 2009:
Hello. Perhaps you might be interested in a few of my photos to add to your collection, both of live and fossil spiders. They are, perhaps, nothing spectacular, but they are a bit different. I'll try to describe them in the order of attachment. Live spiders, all from Ann Arbor, MI, USA: A feather-legged spider (Uloborid) in its orb-web; a pirate spider; a brown lynx spider; a crab spider; and a pair of cobweb spiders. Dominican amber arachnids: Cephalothorax of an odd-looking jumping-spider; and a stereo-view of a schizomid (you can free-view it, or print it out and look at it with an old-fashioned stereoscope). Baltic amber spiders: Whole body; and cephalothorax, of a large (for amber) spider of uncertain type (maybe a clubionid?); and the head-end of an Archaea sp. (Archaea was first discovered in Baltic amber, and subsequently found alive in isolated tropical areas; it is a specialized spider hunter with very long jaws). Burmese amber spiders: Uncertain type (note the strange conical eyes; not 100% certain it's Burmese, as it's an old photo); a Lagonomegopid (only found in Cretaceous amber), note the large eye on the side of the cephalothorax; a small unknown spider; and a close-up of a foot of web-spinning spider, x440. It has the two comb-shaped claws, and the hook-and-hairs third claw arrangement for grasping strands of webbing. Burmese amber is mid-Cretaceous (c. 100-110 MYO). Some of the spiders found in it are strange. The best summary of it is given here, via the American Museum of Natural History: http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/2914
Most of the amber photos here have been processed to get rid of most of the yellow to improve the contrast, hence the strange colours. Hope these are useful.
Yours sincerely,
David Sorenson.
