A 53-million-year-old spider has been revealed in exquisite detail by scientists from the UK and Belgium.
The ancient creepy-crawly had been trapped in amber and preserved in a lowland area around Paris, France.
The scientists reconstructed the 1mm creature's original appearance using an X-ray-based medical imaging technique.
The spider gives us a snapshot of ancient times
The pictures, published in the journal Zootaxa, "digitally dissect" the tiny spider to expose amazing details such as the preservation of internal organs.
"This is definitely the way forward for the study of amber fossils," said David Penney, from Manchester University and lead author on the study.
David Penney is well known for his work on amber-locked spiders
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This is the first time that the medical imaging technique, known as Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography, has been used to investigate a fossil in amber - and Dr Penney said it had the potential to "revolutionise" the way fossils were studied.
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk 