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Around 200 rare baby fen raft spi­der or great raft spi­ders have been ‘fos­tered’ by keep­ers at Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens in an effort to pro­tect one of the UK’s most endan­gered species of arach­nids. Hun­dreds of tiny fen raft spi­der­lings (Dolomedes plan­tar­ius) have been col­lected from fen­land areas around the UK and taken in by var­i­ous col­lec­tions– includ­ing Bris­tol Zoo — to be reared and released in September.

The con­ser­va­tion breed­ing project aims to save the species, which is one of Europe’s largest but least com­mon spi­ders, and is only found in three sites in Britain — Nor­folk, East Sus­sex and South Wales.

The spi­ders are so rare that they are pro­tected by law in the UK and have been clas­si­fied as ‘Vul­ner­a­ble’ on the Inter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threat­ened Species. The three-​week old spi­der­lings, which are just a few mil­lime­tres in size, have been trans­ferred into 200 indi­vid­ual test tubes and are now each receiv­ing inten­sive care by experts in Bris­tol Zoo’s Bug World — a process that takes hours every day. Car­men Solan, inver­te­brate keeper at Bris­tol Zoo said: “Car­ing for 200 hun­gry young spi­ders is a big job. We indi­vid­u­ally feed tiny fruit flies to each spi­der­ling; it is a very del­i­cate process but one that we are pleased and proud to be a part of.”

In Sep­tem­ber the young spi­ders will be released into the wild fen­land habi­tats where they were found, to begin their adult lives. These semi-​aquatic spi­ders can grow to approx­i­mately 8 cm in leg span and live for around three years.

The Fen Raft Spi­der Species Recov­ery pro­gramme is a part­ner­ship led by Nat­ural Eng­land to safe­guard the future of this species, which is under threat from habi­tat destruc­tion and dry­ing out of their marsh­land homes. Nat­ural England’s head of pro­fes­sion for bio­di­ver­sity, Dr Peter Broth­er­ton said: “The spi­ders from the first release in 2010 are just start­ing to breed this year — this is an impor­tant mile­stone for the recov­ery pro­gramme and a clear indi­ca­tion we’re going in the right direc­tion. If this species is to recover it still needs more help and the ded­i­cated sup­port from organ­i­sa­tions such as Bris­tol Zoo is vital to the future of our biggest spider.”

Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens is a con­ser­va­tion and edu­ca­tion char­ity and relies on the gen­er­ous sup­port of the pub­lic not only to fund its impor­tant work in the zoo, but also its vital con­ser­va­tion and research projects span­ning five continents.

The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.

(Source: Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens, 02.08.2012)