strange bedfellows. But in the case of Puerto Plata, sometimes known as the Amber Coast, they are a perfect match. Scientists from all over the world have found clues there to natural history, aided by those who, like Italian tourist-turned-entrepreneur Didi Costa, early on saw the potential of one of the earth's most beautiful gems: amber.

Recent scientific findings from the Puerto Plata region are prompting a possible revision of the accepted theory on the geographical evolution of the Caribbean. At the center of the commotion is a 15 to 20 million-year-old adult male spider, Misionella didicostae, recently discovered among the inventory of amber fossils at Puerto Plata's Amber Museum. This Misionella didicostae, the only one of its kind, is preserved just beneath the surface of a clear-yellow, tear-shaped piece of Dominican amber that is 4 centimeters long and 1.7 centimeters wide.

One of the world's top palaeoarachnologists, David Penney from the University of Manchester in England, who is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, came upon the finding following an educated hunch he had while perusing unexhibited pieces of the museum's collection in April 2003.

For years, scientists believed that the Caribbean islands had originated in the Pacific, later migrating with tectonic plate movements to their present position. The real importance of the new fossil species lies in the fact that it supports the hypothesis that the developing northern Greater Antilles and northwestern South America were briefly connected by a landspan centered on the emergent Aves Ridge.

While the Puerto Plata spider fossil is unique, its discovery provides an ancient link to its cousins, the living spiders of the same Filistatidae family that are still found in Brazil and Argentina today.