These amazing ancient spider fossils were unearthed near Daohugou Village in Inner Mongolia.

Researchers Paul Selden and Diying Huang, of the University of Kansas and the Chinese Academy of Sciences respectively, have datee them to around 165 million years ago and identified them as a new species.

They are also, say Selden and Huang, unmistakably members of the modern spider family Plectreuridae. This group is currently only found in southwest USA, Mexico, Cuba, and Costa Rica.

“This new discovery not only extends the fossil record of the family by at least 120 Ma to the Middle Jurassic but also supports the hypothesis of a different distribution of the family in the past than today and subsequent extinction over much of its former range,” they write in Naturwissenschaften.

Arachnophobes may be slightly relieved to learn that these are tiny, with the spider’s body length struggling to reach even 5 mm.

They are, however, stunningly well preserved. “You go in with a microscope, and bingo! It’s fantastic,” Selden told Wired.

For more great pictures of fossil spiders, check out Selden’s recent review paper – co-authored with David Penney of the University of Manchester – in Biological Reviews.

Images: courtesy of Paul Selden.