Frankenspider: A Long Extinct Spider Walks Again!

An extinct spider called Paleocharinus has been recreated via digital imaging.  The extinct spider crawled the earth 416 million years ago.  These spiders are interesting because during this time most of the Earth’s species dwelled in the ocean, and the Paleocharinus was among the first bugs to walk on land.  In fact, they were about the only animal at all to walk on land during this time, which made them the species at the top of the food chain.

The team of researchers and computer graphics artists were only able to recreate the bug while walking due to how well preserved it was within a fossil.  The researchers could even make out the muscle tendons of the bug, which was instrumental in recreating how it moved and attacked other species of tiny bugs that existed at the time.  These bugs even walked much like modern spiders, but due to the creation of modern giant bugs, the life of this extinct bug was short lived.

What other extinct bugs do you know about? What were they like?