Time travel
A story with many branches.
Fossils are windows into past worlds. Relationships help explain connections between ways of life.
Artistic AI illustration created by Aik, idea by Mario.
Artistic AI illustration created by Aik, idea by Mario. An artistic scene for this time window, not a photograph of a scientific specimen.
ARANEAE / EVOLUTION
Devonian · early silk
Attercopus is known from deposits about 386 million years old. Its silk outlets occurred along plate edges. The 2008 reassessment places it in Uraraneida. This documents early silk production in spider relatives, not a Devonian orb web.
Selden, Shear & Sutton (2008) · Fossil evidence for the origin of spider spinnerets ↗
There was no orb web at the beginning. ↗Five stations organise the story thematically. Fossil age, inferred ancestry and time of origin are different claims; this is not a timeline drawn to scale.
Following the first spiders ↗