Ancient bugs

In this photo released from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, entomologists Marjorie Hoy, left, and Ayyamperumal Jeyaprakash examine a fossil spider embedded in amber, at the UF entomology department in Gainesville – Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008. The researchers recently published a paper that estimates when spiders, scorpions, ticks and mites first appeared on Earth. The paper suggests that the creatures descended from a common ancestor roughly 400 million to 450 million years ago.

(Tyler Jones, University of Florida/IFAS)
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