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Computed tomography recovers data from historical amber: an example from huntsman spiders

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Abstract

Computed tomography (CT) methods were applied to a problematic fossil spider (Arachnida: Araneae) from the historical Berendt collection of Eocene (ca. 44–49 Ma) Baltic amber. The original specimens of Ocypete crassipes Koch and Berendt 1854 are in dark, oxidised amber and the published descriptions lack detail. Despite this, they were subsequently assigned to the living Pantropical genus Heteropoda Latreille, 1804 and are ostensibly the oldest records of huntsman spiders (Sparassidae) in general. Given their normally large size, and presumptive ability to free themselves more easily from resin, it would be surprising to find a sparassid in amber and traditional (optical) methods of study would likely have left O. crassipes as an equivocal record—probably a nomen dubium. However, phase contrast enhanced X-ray CT revealed exquisite morphological detail and thus ‘saved’ this historical name by revealing characters which confirm that it's a bona fide member both of Sparassidae and the subfamily Eusparassinae. We demonstrate here that CT studies facilitate taxonomic equivalence even between recent spiders and unpromising fossils described in older monographs. In our case, fine structural details such as eye arrangement, cheliceral dentition, and leg characters like a trilobate membrane, spination and claws, allow a precise referral of this fossil to an extant genus as Eusparassus crassipes (Koch and Berendt 1854) comb. nov.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Christian Neumann (MfN, Berlin) for access to material in his care, Paul Selden (Kansas) for providing Chinese literature and the reviewers for helpful remarks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin, 10115, Berlin, Germany

    Jason A. Dunlop

  2. Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK

    David Penney & Richard F. Preziosi

  3. Zoologisches Institut und Museum, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Natalie Dalüge

  4. Senckenberg Research Institute, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Peter Jäger

  5. Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, M1 7HS, UK

    Andrew McNeil, Robert S. Bradley & Philip J. Withers

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  1. Jason A. Dunlop
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Correspondence to Jason A. Dunlop.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Dunlop, J.A., Penney, D., Dalüge, N. et al. Computed tomography recovers data from historical amber: an example from huntsman spiders. Naturwissenschaften 98, 519–527 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-011-0796-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-011-0796-x

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