Ancient Mite Rides On Top Of Spider In Gross, Awesome Fossil

You know how when a spider gets on you, you’re like, “Ahh! Guck! Uck! Spider!” and you kind of swipe at it until it gets off your skin and you can resume your normal existence of eating, reading the Internet, and wondering when a spider will next get on you? Well, that’s how I imagine spiders react to mites. Unless of course they get trapped in amber during the “Guck! Uck!” phase, in which case fifty million years go by, and then some scientists CT scan the whole damn thing and point out all the mite’s really gross parts, like its “thorn-shaped process” and its “cuticular skeleton of sucking-apparatus.” Meanwhile, who is thinking of the spider and its pain? No one! Poor spider.

3-D Scan Of Spider Fossil Shows A Hitchhiking Mite [Forbes]