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Fossils of a 410 million-year-old arachnid - one of the first predators on land - have been used to recreate what the animal might have looked like when walking.

Researchers used exceptionally preserved fossils from the Natural History Museum in London to create the animation.

And in so doing they managed to show the most likely walking gait of the animal, which was thought to be only a few millimetres long.

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More than 400 million years after it became extinct, scientists have recreated one of the planet's earliest predators. Researchers at the University of Manchester and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin used CGI to recreate the walk of a now extinct ancestor of the spider. Illustration pictured

The study was published in the Journal of Paleontology and carried out by The University of Manchester and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

The scientists used the fossils - thin slices of rock showing the animal's cross-section - to work out the range of motion in the limbs of this ancient, extinct early relative of the spiders.

From this, and comparisons to living arachnids, the researchers used an open source computer graphic program called Blender to create the video showing the animals walking.

This particular arachnid was known as Palaeocharinus of the extinct Order Trigonotarbida that roamed from around 419 and 290 million years ago.

'When it comes to early life on land, long before our ancestors came out of the sea, these early arachnids were top dog of the food chain,' said author Dr Russell Garwood, a palaeontologist in the University of Manchester's School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences.

'They are now extinct but, from about 300 to 400 million years ago, seem to have been more widespread than spiders.

'Now we can use the tools of computer graphics to better understand and recreate how they might have moved - all from thin slivers of rock, showing the joints in their legs.'

The scientists used the fossils to work out the range of motion in the limbs of this ancient, extinct early relative of the spiders. From this, and comparisons to living arachnids, the researchers used an open source computer graphic program called Blender to create the video showing the animals walking in the animation above

These eight-legged creatures were one of the earliest to walk the land, dominating the food chain while the ancestors of humans were still swimming in the primeval swamp. Pictured is an X-ray of the 410 million-year-old arachnid fossil from London's Natural History Museum

Co-author Dr Jason Dunlop, a curator at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, said: 'These fossils - from a rock called the Rhynie chert - are unusually well-preserved.

'During my PhD I could build up a pretty good idea of their appearance in life. This new study has gone further and shows us how they probably walked.

'For me, what's really exciting here is that scientists themselves can make these animations now, without needing the technical wizardry - and immense costs - of a Jurassic Park-style film.

'When I started working on fossil arachnids we were happy if we could manage a sketch of what they used to look like; now we can view them running across our computer screens.'

This work is part of a special collection of papers on three-dimensional visualisation and analysis of fossils published.

Dr Garwood added: 'Using open-source software means that this is something anyone could do at home, while allowing us to understand these early land animals better than ever before.'

Pictured here are a sequence of images from the video showing how the arachnid walked. 'For me, what's really exciting here is that scientists themselves can make these animations now, without needing the technical wizardry - and immense costs - of a Jurassic Park-style film,' said Dr Dunlop