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Ancient spider mom preserved in amber found to be protecting her young


Still Waters

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A trio of researchers with Capital Normal University in China has found evidence of a mother spider protecting her young in an amber sample dated back to 99 million years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Xiangbo Guo, Paul Selden and Dong Rend describe where the sample was found and what they learned about the spider it contains.

Many modern spider species have been found to take measures to ensure the survival of their offspring—females have been seen crouching to cover hatchlings, for example, and producing silk to tie and hold eggs closely together. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence of a mother spider from the mid-Cretaceous exhibiting the same behavior.

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-ancient-spider-mom-amber-young.html

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/

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Or maybe dear old Mom was eating them just like she ate dear old Dad... 

~

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1 hour ago, third_eye said:

Or maybe dear old Mom was eating them just like she ate dear old Dad... 

Works the other way around in a lot of spiders.  She is the first meal.

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28 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

Works the other way around in a lot of spiders.  She is the first meal.

Thanks be to the divine for mammary glands... 

~

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My son has a Chilean rose tarantula. He bought it at PetSmart and after almost a year later he found an egg sac in her terrarium. While trying to remove the egg sac she became defensive. He put the sac in a casing next to her and she would just stare at them all day. He called the pet shop and they told my son it was most likely a phantom egg sac. Nope! Little hatchlings opened up weeks later and we had about two hundred baby tarantulas. He ultimately brought them to an exotic pet expo and gave them to a breeder. 

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