From Rock & Gem, this must have been a startling find for this kid, and a big kudos to him for noticing it! It's hard to imagine this spider's eyes could still be glowing, since it's been encased in rock for eons, yet there it is, 2 eyes eerily glowing from the dark rock. What an awesome thing to find!
A Long-Dead Spider’s Eyes Still Glow
Spider fossil with flowing glowing eyes (Photo courtesy http://www.worldnewslive4you.com).If you’re an arachnophobe who finds it hard to sleep at the thought of the many spiders inhabiting your abode, fossil-collecting high school student Kye-Soo Nam discovered the stuff of nightmares: 112 million-year-old spider eyes that still glow from within the rock that entombs them!
The fossil in question—from the Lagonomegopidae spider family—was found in the Lower Cretaceous Jinju shale formation of South Korea and was described recently in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
Spiders have a canoe-shaped structure within their eyes called the tapetum, which reflects light. Such reflective eyes are particularly useful for spiders that are night hunters. This is the first time this structure has been found preserved in the fossil record of spiders, a record that includes 1,000 known species and that extends back as far as 420 million years to the Silurian Period. Sleep well, arachnophobe, secure in the knowledge that at least the critter that sports these glowing eyes is long dead and firmly ensconced in stone.
