Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.The idea of coming face to face with a spider-like creature unexpectedly is enough to fill any arachnophobe with horror, let alone encountering one with large, spiky legs.But that is exactly what roamed around what’s currently northeast Illinois in the late Carboniferous Period about 300 million to 320 million years ago, according to a study published Friday in the Journal of Paleontology.The newly discovered long-extinct species is described as a “large spider-like arachnid” with “distinctive large spines on the legs” by the study’s authors. They were unable to place the creature within any known arachnid order due to the specimen’s lack of mouthparts, which scientists use to classify them.“You see sort of spiny legs in some arachnids, but we’ve never seen one that really has these big spines all the way along, at least the first parts of the legs. It’s very, very striking,” Dr. Jason Dunlop, a curator of arachnids and myriapods at Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde and the study’s coauthor, told CNN on Friday.“We looked at it twice and said, ‘What are we looking at here?’”Expert fossil preparator Bob Masek first discovered the specimen in the 1980s in the fossil deposits preserved at Illinois’ Mazon Creek Lagerstätte. (The German word is a term paleontologists use to describe an exceptional site with many perfectly preserved fossils.) However, it wasn’t until 2023 that it became apparent the specimen was a newfound species and fossil collector David Douglass, who had acquired it from Masek, donated it for research.Researchers then examined and photographed the fossil using a camera attached to a microscope.They found that the creature was “evidently something very different from any previously described arachnid,” with spiny legs that resemble some modern harvestmen arachnids but with a different type of body.Scientists think the spiny legs were for defensive purpo …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnSign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.The idea of coming face to face with a spider-like creature unexpectedly is enough to fill any arachnophobe with horror, let alone encountering one with large, spiky legs.But that is exactly what roamed around what’s currently northeast Illinois in the late Carboniferous Period about 300 million to 320 million years ago, according to a study published Friday in the Journal of Paleontology.The newly discovered long-extinct species is described as a “large spider-like arachnid” with “distinctive large spines on the legs” by the study’s authors. They were unable to place the creature within any known arachnid order due to the specimen’s lack of mouthparts, which scientists use to classify them.“You see sort of spiny legs in some arachnids, but we’ve never seen one that really has these big spines all the way along, at least the first parts of the legs. It’s very, very striking,” Dr. Jason Dunlop, a curator of arachnids and myriapods at Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde and the study’s coauthor, told CNN on Friday.“We looked at it twice and said, ‘What are we looking at here?’”Expert fossil preparator Bob Masek first discovered the specimen in the 1980s in the fossil deposits preserved at Illinois’ Mazon Creek Lagerstätte. (The German word is a term paleontologists use to describe an exceptional site with many perfectly preserved fossils.) However, it wasn’t until 2023 that it became apparent the specimen was a newfound species and fossil collector David Douglass, who had acquired it from Masek, donated it for research.Researchers then examined and photographed the fossil using a camera attached to a microscope.They found that the creature was “evidently something very different from any previously described arachnid,” with spiny legs that resemble some modern harvestmen arachnids but with a different type of body.Scientists think the spiny legs were for defensive purpo …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
