Born and BREAD: Two fully-grown fen raft spiders crawl on a plate after being bred in Dr Helen Smith's kitchenThousands of hand-reared baby spiders are being released into the wild this week in a bid to boost numbers of one of Britain’s most endangered species.
Some 3,000 baby fen raft spiders - a species found in just three sites in the UK - were bred in the kitchen of ecologist Dr Helen Smith.
Dr Smith then hand-reared many of the baby spiders, while others were reared by the John Innes Centre, after the breeding programme used parents from both sites to improve the genetic variation of the population being released into the wild.
Crammed: Dr Smith's kitchen filled with containers and tubes where the spiders were hatched and raisedThe ‘spiderlings’ have been kept in separate test tubes so they do not attack each other and individually hand fed with fruit flies.
They are now ready to be released into their wetland habitat at Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Castle Marshes reserve, between Lowestoft and Beccles.
The fen raft spider was discovered in 1956, and is classed as an endangered species in the UK, with tiny populations in just two sites in England and one in Wales.
Dr Pete Brotherton, head of biodiversity for Natural England, said: ‘Numbers of the fen raft spider have dwindled to perilously low levels in England - isolated to a few remaining pockets of habitat, it would be difficult for the remaining populations to recover on their own.
Confined: The baby spiders were bred in test tubes to stop them attacking each other
Up close: An adult female raft spider. They live in only three UK sites and scientists want to boost their numbers
‘Targeted reintroduction has given this endangered species a second chance and it is encouraging to see how the work of dedicated ecologists like Helen can make a real difference to the fortunes of our threatened wildlife.’
Dr Smith said hand-rearing more than a thousand baby spiders since the spring was an ‘exhausting’ job.
‘At one stage I was up until 2am, seven days a week, feeding flies to hungry young spiders in my kitchen.
‘I'm excited and relieved to see them making their own way in the world - and I can finally have my kitchen back.’
source :dailymail
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