Britain's rarest spider moves to new home

[Feuer Frei!]

The UK's rarest spider is moving house today -- in a plastic bottle supplied by conservation group the RSPB.
The ladybird spider, so called for its bright red body covered in black spots, was on the brink of extinction in the mid 1990s when a single colony of just 56 individuals was left in the UK.
Since then conservationists have been helping it to spread further afield -- and today (Thursday) it is to be released into one of the most diverse insect and spider habitats in the country at the RSPB***8217;s Arne reserve in Dorset, the organisation announced.
Scientists have come up with an ingenious low-tech method of transferring the spiders. They are using empty plastic mineral water bottles which are an ideal shape and size for the spiders to make their nests in.
The bottles were filled with heather and moss and then captured spiders from the donor site were placed inside and monitored while they settled in and made a web. The bottles will be buried in holes in the ground at Arne so that the spiders can colonise the nearby area.
The spiders will be another piece of the invertebrate jigsaw for the Arne reserve which is already home to a host of rare insect and spider species. The heathland site boasts 240 species of spider and hundreds of insect species including the threatened silver studded blue butterfly, the Purbeck mason wasp which is only found in Dorset and the Roesel***8217;s bush cricket which was discovered on the site last year.


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