Rare prehistoric spider fossil discovered in China - and it is so unusual scientists have created a new species in its honour

The spider fossil was discovered in the Daohugou beds of Inner Mongolia



It was found in the same place as the Nephila jurassica fossil from 2011

Whereas the original fossil is female, the new discovery is male



Researchers believe the pair to be similar to modern ogre-faced spiders

They have proposed a new genus called Mongolarachne to describe it



Three years after scientists made the astonishing discovery of a large prehistoric spider fossil in China, the same team have uncovered another.



The original female fossil, found in the Daohugou beds of Inner Mongolia in 2011, was so well preserved experts claimed it was part of the Nephila species.



Yet the latest discovery of a similar-sized male fossil casts serious doubt over this theory because its relative size doesn't fit the Nephila mould.



In fact, the researchers were so baffled by the differences, they have proposed a new genus called Mongolarachne, to describe the creature.



The fossil of a male spider, pictured, was found on the site of Daohugou in Inner Mongolia. It was discovered in the same place as a female spider fossil from 2011. Spider fossils are rare because their bodies are soft, yet this pair was found in volcanic deposits and may have been buried at the bottom of a lake

THE RISE OF THE MONGOLARACHNE Back in 2011, the 165-million-year-old female spider was dubbed Nephila jurassica.

Experts made this conclusion because the fossil is roughly the size of modern-day Nephilidae, or orb-weaver spiders - with a body one-inch long and more than half an inch wide, and legs that stretch to 2.5 inches.

The females in this family are large, but the males are relatively small in comparison. Although the male fossil looked similar to the Nephila jurassica, it wasn't that much smaller than the female, with a 0.65-inch long body, and legs that stretch 2.29 inches.

Its sex appendages, between its jaws and legs, also did not match those seen on modern-day Nephila males.

It was also said to have 'spirals of hairlets' that were more feathery than those seen on orb-weavers. This led Professor Selden and his team to propose a new genus, Mongolarachne of the family Mongolarachnidae to describe the creatures.



Professor Paul Selden from Kansas University was part of the research team that discovered both fossilised spiders.

Spider fossils are rare because their bodies are soft, yet this pair was found in volcanic deposits and experts believe these deposits may have buried the pair at the bottom of a lake, perfectly preserving them.



Back in 2011, the 165-million-year-old female spider was dubbed Nephila jurassica. The Nephila genus is also known as Golden orb-weavers.



The fossil is roughly the size of the spider's modern-day descendants, with a body one-inch long and more than half an inch wide, and legs that stretch to 2.5 inches.



The females in this genus are the largest web-weaving spiders alive today, with a body length of up to 2 inches and a leg span of 6 inches. Males are relatively small in comparison.

While the male fossil looked similar to the Nephila jurassica, its size and shape suggested otherwise.

Firstly, it wasn't that much smaller than the female, with a 0.65-inch long body, and legs that stretch 2.29 inches.



Its sex appendages, between its jaws and legs, also did not match those seen on modern-day Nephila males.



It was additionally said to have 'spirals of hairlets' that were more feathery than those seen on orb-weavers.

Researchers named the female, right, Nephila jurassica because of its likeness to the Nephila species of golden orb weavers. Yet the size of the male, left, contradicts this. Researchers now believe the species more closely resemble ogre-faced spiders and have proposed a new genus called Mongolarachne This led Professor Selden and his team to propose a new genus, Mongolarachne of the family Mongolarachnidae, to describe the creatures.

According to findings reported in the journal Naturwissenschaften, Monogolarachne closely resemble modern-day ogre-faced spiders, of the Deinopidae family.

The spider was dug up at a site called Daohugou in Inner Mongolia that is filled with fossilised salamanders, small primitive mammals, insects and water crustaceans. During the Jurassic era, the fossil bed was part of a lake in a volcanic region.

