A creepy spider tail

IF you are not a fan of spiders, you may not like the creepy little arachnid scientists have found entombed in chunks of amber from northern Myanmar. Unlike its spider cousins alive today, this guy had a tail.

Scientists yesterday described four specimens of the arachnid, called Chimerarachne yingi, that inhabited a Cretaceous Period tropical forest about 100 million years ago during the dinosaur age.

The arachnid possessed a remarkably primitive feature: a whip-like tail covered in short hairs that it may have used for sensing predators and prey.