Millions of years ago Australia was a paradise for spiders. Scientists have found a beautifully preserved fossil of an extremely large spider that roamed and hunted in what was once a lush rainforest in the arid heart of the continent.

This isn’t just a fossilized spider. This is the fourth spider fossil ever found in Australia and the first worldwide belonging to the Barychelidae family of large brush-legged, trapdoor spiders. The new species, which lived in the Miocene 11-16 million years ago, received the official name Megamonodontium mccluskyi.

“Only four spider fossils have been found across the entire continent, making it difficult for scientists to understand the evolutionary history of spiders. That’s why this discovery is so important; it opens up new information about spider extinctions and fills a gap in our understanding of the past,” says the University of New South Wales and Australian Museum Paleontologist Matthew McCurry from .

“The closest living relative of this fossil now lives in wet forests from Singapore to Papua New Guinea. This suggests that the group once lived in similar environments on mainland Australia, but later became extinct as Australia became arid.”

The spider was discovered among a rich collection of Miocene fossils found in the grassland region of New Wales known as the McGraths Plain. Source