Fossil Amber - Spider Attack with Hairy Backed Fly

This is an interesting specimen that captures in suspended animation the most primal aspect of nature red in tooth and claw. A well-preserved spider appears about to pounce on an equally well-preserved Dipteran. The casts of characters sharing the crypt includes 8 more Dipterans, a stingless bee (Hymenoptera) and nymph form of a cockroach (Blattodea).

Note that one of the flies (Diptera) is very large; you can count the hairs on its back and the spines on its legs (no microscope was used - just a 2.5x mag in macro mode).

It is in amber that once animated insect life is most exquisitely captured, and particularly when the creatures are in diverse association, as exemplified in this specimen from the foothills of the Andes Mountains in Colombia. And, among amber's, those few pieces that contain many species that at once filled their respective environmental niches, and yet together interacted in the general environment are to me the most fascinating. This is such a specimen.