21 Totally Sweet Spider Superlatives: Page 3

Oldest spider web

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The oldest spider web ever preserved comes from a 110-million-year-old chunk of amber from San Just, Spain. This incredible fossil holds 26 gossamer threads of spider silk and three unfortunate spider victims. Trapped in the strands are a mite, a small fly and a wasp. The spider creator of the web wasn't preserved, but paleontologists suspect it may have been something like today's orb web spiders, which weave webs in the classic circular shape.

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Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.