Sheathed in amber, tiny bits of spider silk dating to the Cretaceous Period show arachnids have been snaring prey for millions of years. Martin Brasier, a paleobiologist at Oxford University, told the Associated Press the remains of the prehistoric web could be matched with webs found “in my garden.” The silk threads were linked in a circular pattern, offering evidence of the antiquity of spiders’ web-making abilities.

The strands, measuring about 1 millimeter, were visible during microscopic examination of the petrified tree resin. Burnt sap and fossilized vegetable matter were also found in it. An amateur fossil hunter discovered the piece of amber a few years ago on England’s south coast.

Estimated to be 140 million years old, the preserved strands are 15 million years older than an earlier discovery of spider silk preserved in resin found in Lebanon. The delicate nature of spider webs has resulted in few specimens, despite the countless numbers doubtlessly spun.

Brasier offered some advice via e-mail for NSTA Reports readers hoping to use this discovery or others like it to inspire their students in science:

1. Purchase some small cheap amber pieces…You can buy in bulk.
2. Examine [them] using reflected light with a biological microscope. It is easiest to view them in canola cooking oil!
3. Conduct experiments with modern gums, resins, or even syrup to show how things get trapped and how [the gums, resins, and syrup] flow. In particular, test why it is that small things, rather than large things, get stuck. (Big things are stronger and can detach themselves; big things are much rarer than small things—the biological scaling law; and so on).
4. Make some fake amber with polyester resins, glue, araldite, and other materials and trap things in it.
5. Follow the tests for real amber described on various websites to see if the amber is genuine or fake: Does it float; does it form a static charge; does it burn with a resin smell?
6. Explore the ways in which amber is dated (geochronology) and characterized (e.g., Fourier transform infrared radiation spectroscopy).
7. Get students to consider, creatively, what amber could tell us about the seasons in which things got trapped (pollen, raindrops, heat, and viscosity); the climate (pine trees, tropical trees, insects); the altitude; and the geological age (primitive insects; evolution of advanced bees and ants; dinosaurs; mammal hair; bird feathers, and so on).
8. Ask them to consider whether something as delicate as DNA could really survive. (Time, heat, and pressure tend to destroy it.)