Ancient web spins evolution story

The oldest-known spider web with prey still entrapped has been found preserved in a chunk of amber in Spain.

The mesh of silk strands snaring the remains of a fly, beetle, mite and wasp, dates back 110 million years to the time of the dinosaurs.

The fossil web appears to have been designed along the same lines as the round nets woven by modern spiders.

The find, described in Science, sheds light on the early evolution of spiders and the insects they fed on.

The web consists of some 26 silk strands preserved in a thin layer of amber together with arachnid prey.

Although it is not intact, enough of the web structure has survived to convince its discovers - from the University of Barcelona, Spain, and the American Museum of Natural History, New York, US - that it was probably a classical wheel-shaped, or orb, web. It is possibly the oldest spider web on record; an earlier single strand of spider silk preserved in Lebanese amber has been discovered although it is unclear if this was part of a true web.

"The advanced structure of this fossilised web (from Spain), along with the type of prey that the web caught, indicates that spiders have been fishing insects from the air for a very long time," said Dr David Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History.

"Spiders today have a huge impact as predators on insect populations, along with birds and bats."

Ancient web spins evolution story