Imagine this: there you are, a wasp, trapped hopelessly in the web of a fine and brutal specimen of orb-weaver spider as it bears down on you. The spider isn’t going to kill you with a bite or poison; instead it’ll most likely wrap you tightly in silk. Then, it will devour you. But, before it can get to work, a drop of amber falls on both of you (and one of the spider’s pals), preserving the entire scene for the next 100 million years. This went down in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar, with the artifact itself only recently discovered by researchers, George Poinar Jr. of Oregon State University and Ron Buckley, who published their work this week in the journal Historical Biology. In addition to being very creepy, the find is the earliest known evidence of web-based social behavior in spiders.
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