Here’s some fascinating news: Apparently scientists have uncovered Charlotte’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother preserved in a chunk of amber in England. Trapped with her in that piece of fossilized tree resin were remnants of a spider web believed to be 140 million years old — as in back during the early Cretaceous period, for those of you interested in paleontology. They say she was embalmed in the amber as a result of a terrible wildfire. Nothing like dying instantly in a hot, fiery mess and resurfacing completely intact some 140 million years (or 51,100,000,000 days) later.

You can read more about this extremely rare find in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the Geological Society.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Afternoon delight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.