Spiders.

Researchers have found trapped in amber a rare dinosaur-age scene of a spider attacking a wasp caught in its web. The piece of amber, which contains 15 intact strands of spider silk, provides the first fossil evidence of such an assault, the researchers said. It was excavated in a Burmese mine and dates back to the Early Cretaceous, between 97 million and 110 million years ago. PHOTOS: Cretaceous African Life Sealed in Amber "This juvenile spider was going to make a meal out of a tiny parasitic wasp, but never quite got to it," George Poinar, Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said in a statement. "This was a male wasp that suddenly found itself trapped in a spider web. ...

THE HAGUE - Dutch customs confiscated hundreds of poisonous tarantulas on a flight from Peru after discovering them hidden in a suitcase, officials said Wednesday. "Customs at Schiphol airport found 200 live tarantulas and an assortment of other insects including bugs, crickets, grasshoppers and millipedes," customs officials said in a statement, issued by their umbrella Finance Ministry. "The animals were collected by a German couple on a recent trip to Peru and were put in plastic containers and tubes hidden ...

Any residents of the Golden State suffering from arachnophobia may want to exit now. According to KABC-TV, the population of brown-widow spiders is booming in Southern California. Brown widows have been in California for about a decade, but over the past several years their numbers have greatly increased, spreading the eight-legged creepy crawlers farther around the state. Spider researchers like Rick Vetter wonder how far this expansion will go. Vetter told with KABC-TV that right now there is no trend for the direction the brown widows are heading, and researchers are waiting for the spiders to make the first move. While the black widows prefer dark and secluded places like garages, ...