Later this year, the discovery of the only known fossil record of the Filistatidae family will be announced to the world in the Journal of Arachnology, the official periodical of the American Arachnological Society.

Penneys luck in Puerto Plata comes on the heels of another discovery in the arachnid world - the oldest known spider in amber - in the form of a Lebanese fossil that dates back 130 to 135 million years and which made the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records.

Penney, nicknamed "spiderman" by Dominicans during his three-week stay in Puerto Plata, was an expert on Dominican amber well before his first visit In 1994, he wrote his doctorate dissertation, titled "Dominican Republic Amber Spiders and Their Contribution to Fossil and Recent Ecology."

The Dominican Republic is unique in that it is the one region of the world where the amber fauna is similar to the recent fauna," he explains, pointing out that all other countries where amber fossils have been found have seen dramatic variations in climate over the years. This has resulted in significant differences in the living fauna and the age-old creatures preserved in amber.

Penney points to a 1996 study published in Science Magazine that showed that most Dominican amber is relatively recent - 15 to 20 million years old - and was formed in a tropical environment similar to that of the island today. Thus, conclusions are being drawn on the ecology that can be extracted from amber fossils in the Dominican Republic, now believed to be more revealing and accurate than amber fossils recovered in changing climate areas. Penney cites research that has shown there are more families of spiders recorded from fossils in Miocene Dominican amber than from living spider species.

The British scientist has held a life-long fascination with spiders. While all are predators, he said, their incredible variety is even more compelling given that they survived the mass extinction of larger fauna such as dinosaurs.

From a taxonomic or scientific point of view, the discovery of the Misionella didicostae is the foremost specimen in the Amber Museum's collection and the one of the largest on public display. Penney named the new species in appreciation of Didi Costa, the museum's co-founder, who gave him access to the collection when he visited Puerto Plata and the museum for the first time in 2003,