Some 99 million years ago in what's now northern Myanmar, a tick enjoyed a spectacular bout of bad luck.

Normally, the tick would have been hiding in vegetation, hoping to latch onto a small mammal or a feathered dinosaur to suck its blood. But this tick somehow fell into a spider web, and the resident spider promptly straitjacketed its arachnid cousin in loops of silk, either to save it as a snack or to immobilize it as a precaution.

We know this because the tick's day got even worse. As it strained to free itself, the ancient tick became enveloped in oozing tree resin—forever preserving its silken struggle in a chunk of amber.

The bizarre fossil, described in April in the