Harmless or dangerous ?
What looks dangerous here is only an incidental assemblage of fossil objects.
Dangerous in this sample of Devonian chert (about 400 Mill. y.) is the fang of a predatory creature,
probably the trigonotarbid
Palaeocharinus rhyniensis (figure below: image width 1.4mm).
Image width 1.4mm
Sample Rh9/58.1, 0.21kg
found in 2004
This tooth is possibly the best-preserved specimen of its kind, since its acute tip seems less worn than those pictured
at www.abdn.ac.uk and elsewhere.
It was discovered in 2015 in a Rhynie Chert sample (Rh9/58.1, 0.21kg) found in 2004.
One sample found in 2003 (Rh7/10.2, 0.23kg) contains the whole creature but the fang is not seen there
(see
Rhynie Chert News 9
).
The presence of this arachnid shows that, in addition to several aquatic creatures living at those times,
small animals had already crawled over dry land.
H.-J. Weiss
2026
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