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A teeny tiny ancient mite has been attached to the head of a spider for 49 million years in a Baltic amber tomb. At less than 0.2 mm long, this tiny mite is the smallest fossil to be studied using X-ray techniques that give researchers a three-dimensional view of the parasite. The mite looks like a bubble in the middle of the spider's torso (the body section in the middle of all those legs).
Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, M. Svojtka)
Thysanoptera encased in amber.
Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, A. Schmidt)
Stellate hair of ferns encased in amber.
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Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, E. Saupe)
A spider encased in amber.
Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, A. Schmidt)
Fungal spores encased in amber.
Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, A. Schmidt)
Ethiopian amber.
Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, V. Perrichot)
An ant encased in amber.
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Ancient Life Trapped in Amber
(Image credit: PNAS, A. Schmidt)
A Trichogrammatid encased in amber.
Ancient Mites
(Image credit: University of Göttingen/A. Schmidt)
Photomicrographs of the two new species of ancient gall mites in 230-million-year-old amber droplets from northeastern Italy, taken at 1000x magnification. The gall mites were named (left) Triasacarus fedelei and (right) Ampezzoa triassica.
Maple Mite
(Image credit: AMNH/D. Grimaldi)
A scanning electron micrograph image of a modern gall mite that’s found on silver maple leaves.
Amber Drops
(Image credit: University of Padova/S. Castelli)
Typical amber droplets. For a study released Aug. 27, 2012 in the journal PNAS, researchers screened 70,000 drops, resulting in the three arthropod inclusions. Scale bar: 1 mm.
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