Tag Archives: spiders

Big new spider species discovery in Sri Lanka

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A male Poecilotheria rajaei

From Wildlife Extra:

New tarantula species the size of an ipad discovered in Sri Lanka

New spiders grow up to 8 inches across

April 2013. A large new species of tarantula has been discovered in Sri Lanka. At 8 inches across, the new tarantula isn’t as large as the Goliath bird eating tarantula of South America, which can grow up to 12 inches. Poecilotheria rajaei (as the new spider has been named) would still be as long as an ipad screen. It is also quite fast for a spider, and venomous.

The tarantula was discovered back in 2009 when a villager in Mankulam, up in the northern part of Sri Lanka, provided Ranil Nanayakkara (Co-founder of the Biodiversity Education And Research (BEAR) organisation) with a dead male specimen. Further live specimens were then found in the village’s former doctor’s living quarters. It was quickly established that it was different to any species known from Sri Lanka at that time.

This group of tarantulas are commonly referred to variously as the Indian and Sri Lankan Ornamental Tarantulas, Parachute Spiders, Tiger Spiders, etc. but the scientific name is Poecilotheria rajaei (named after Inspector Michael Rajakumar Purajah – who was instrumental in allowing Ranil and his team access to the areas they needed to get to). It is an arboreal tarantula, so in its natural habitat it prefers to live in holes in trees or similar such crevices.

It belongs to a group of brightly coloured tarantulas from India and Sri Lanka which we can differentiate from one another by the pattern of black bands on the underside of their legs and, in this particular species and one other, a pale, ventral abdominal band.

Adapted to living in houses!

It is the first of what we believe are several new species of tarantula that have been located in this previously inaccessible region of Sri Lanka. Although this species is scarce as a consequence of its natural habitat having been destroyed, it has been able to adapt and has started to encroach on the ‘artificial trees’ that human habitation provides.

Our thanks to The British Tarantula Society & Ranil Nanayakkara.

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New spider discovery in new Welsh nature reserve

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This video is called Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi).

From Wildlife Extra:

Newly created woodland scores an arachnid first for Wales

Rare spider sighting heralds new future for Usk wildlife haven

March 2013. Amateur arachnologists, (spider experts), at the Woodland Trust‘s newly created wood at Cefn Ila near Usk have clocked up a Welsh first, a breeding record of the rare and beautiful wasp spider.

Out surveying for moths last autumn, biologist Michael Kilner, a volunteer for the Woodland Trust at Cefn Ila Woodland, near Llanbadoc, Usk, noticed and recorded more than 25 of the rare arachnids, including two males. What’s more, some were engaged in breeding behaviour. It is unusual to see this, as it is only during a short period, while female’s jaws are still soft after moulting, that the much smaller male is able to mate without being eaten by the female.

Wasp spider

Probably named for the black and yellow stripes on its abdomen, the fearsome but beautiful wasp spider, or Argiope bruennichi, preys on flying insects and grasshoppers and has even been known to capture and devour wasps. These spiders are still very rare outside the south east of England but have been gradually increasing their range over the past two decades, possibly due to climate change.

New woodland planted with 36,000 trees

The Woodland Trust acquired Cefn Ila in 2007 and has already planted more than 36,000 trees to create 24 ha (59 acres) of new woodland. Now, with the help of a £25,800 development grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the charity plans to develop the new wood so as to help and encourage the local community to make the most of it, organising a programme of events and activities for schools, local people and visitors, and restoring the site’s natural and built heritage. The aim is to recruit local volunteers to lead activities and to work with local people to propagate the rare heritage fruit trees growing in the site’s historic orchard.

Barry Embling, who manages the site for the Woodland Trust says: “I’m finding that local people are drawn to Cefn Ila. Many of them, including Michael Kilner who recorded these rare spiders, were actually born here, as there used to be a maternity hospital on the site, which actually burnt down in 1973.

“It’s a wonderful place. As well as the new woodland, it includes a historic walled garden and orchard and an arboretum that has been described by the expert Ivor Stokes as ‘amongst the finest in Wales’. I’m really looking forward to working with the local community to make more of the site and to encourage more people to enjoy and appreciate it.”

Like all Woodland Trust woods, Cefn Ila is open to the public at any time for free.

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Butterfly colours against spiders, not birds?

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This video from the USA says about itself:

The Great Purple Hairstreak Butterfly (Altides halesus) is widely distributed in the southern and western United States, but is considered a rare butterfly in most places, and is seldom seen by most people. The larvae feed on various species of Mistletoe. The adult butterflies rarely open their wings, except to take flight, and usually appear as dark charcoal/black-colored when at rest with their wings over their backs. The only time to see the amazing irridescent top side of a living Purple Hairstreak is when they first emerge from the chrysalis and expand their wings.

From ScienceDaily:

Spiders, Not Birds, May Drive Evolution of Some Butterflies

Mar. 12, 2013 — Butterflies are among the most vibrant insects, with colorations sometimes designed to deflect predators. New University of Florida research shows some of these defenses may be driven by enemies one-tenth their size.

Since the time of Darwin 150 years ago, researchers have believed large predators like birds mainly influenced the evolution of coloration in butterflies. In the first behavioral study to directly test the defense mechanism of hairstreak butterflies, UF lepidopterist Andrei Sourakov found that the appearance of a false head — a wing pattern found on hundreds of hairstreak butterflies worldwide — was 100 percent effective against attacks from a jumping spider. The research published online March 8 in the Journal of Natural History shows small arthropods, rather than large vertebrate predators, may influence butterfly evolution.

“Everything we observe out there has been blamed on birds: aposematic coloration, mimicry and various defensive patterns like eyespots,” said study author Andrei Sourakov, a collection coordinator at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity on the UF campus. “It’s a big step in general and a big leap of faith to realize that a creature as tiny as a jumping spider, whose brain and life span are really small compared to birds, can actually be partially responsible for the great diversity of patterns that evolved out there among Lepidoptera and other insects.”

Sourakov’s behavioral experiments at the McGuire Center showed the Red-banded Hairstreak butterfly, Calycopis cecrops, whose spots and tail imitate a false head, successfully escaped all 16 attacks from the jumping spider, Phidippus pulcherrimus. When 11 other butterfly and moth species from seven different families were exposed to the jumping spider, they were unable to escape attack in every case. Sourakov videotaped the experiments and analyzed the results in slow motion.

“From the video, you can see the spider is always very precise,” Sourakov said. “In one video, the spider sees a moth that looks like a leaf and it walks very carefully around to the head and then jumps at the head region. The spider has an innate or acquired ability to distinguish the head region very well and it always attacks there to deliver its venom to the vital center to instantly paralyze the prey. Most importantly, the spider is very small, so sometimes its prey is 10 times larger.”

The species of hairstreak butterfly and jumping spider used in the experiment are both common in the southeastern U.S., with similar relatives spread worldwide. In nature, the spider and hairstreak come into contact when the butterfly lands on leaves or flowers to rest and feed. Female red-banded hairstreak butterflies lay their eggs in leaf litters, which are often crawling with spiders.

David Wagner, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with the study, said the research shows scientists need to rethink what drives adaptive coloration patterns because the results suggest that “birds are only part of the story.”

“I’m just so impressed with Andrei’s experimental protocol and the fact that the jumping spider could not catch the hairstreak butterflies,” Wagner said. “His empirical study will do much to cause us to rethink the vision and the visual acuity that certain invertebrate predators have when hunting their prey and how this has really molded how some organisms not only look like, but perhaps how they act, as well.”

Unlike other butterflies, hairstreaks constantly move the hind wings that carry the false head pattern, a behavior that seems to increase in the presence of the spider, as if the butterfly is attracting attention to itself, Sourakov said. In museum collections, hairstreak specimens are frequently found with the false-head portion of the wings missing. During the experiments, the spider always attacked the butterfly’s false head, thereby avoiding its vital organs.

“The false head hypothesis in hairstreaks has been in circulation for a long time because people always speculated that their tails move around in order to fake out the predators, but there was little experimental evidence,” Sourakov said.

Sourakov said he hopes the study encourages behavioral ecologists to further test the idea that evolution in butterflies and moths may be driven by small invertebrate predators.

“This clearly shows it’s possible that many spectacular patterns that we find in smaller insects may be due to spider pressure rather than bird pressure,” Sourakov said. “The butterfly escapes from the spider — it’s a fairytale story.”

On National Save a Spider day, read up on the surprising ways the eight-legged critters benefit humans: here.

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Many Brazilian spiders, video

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writes on Huffington Post in the USA on this video:

Raining Spiders In Brazil? Video Appears To Show Numerous Arachnids Dangling

Posted: 02/08/2013 7:57 pm EST | Updated: 02/09/2013 10:31 am EST

Arachnophobes would be wise to steer clear of Santo Antônio da Platina in Brazil.

According to a video uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 7, spiders appear have taken to dangling from the city’s electric lines and other surfaces.

These seem to be fairly large critters, too, plainly visible when the camera is zoomed all the way out, with a rough approximation of size given by nearby transformers on the electric poles.

It isn’t immediately clear why these spiders are congregating in such a manner, but it’s worth noting several species of arachnid cooperate in colonies and weave (ahem) fairly extensive social networks.

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New wasp species discovery on Texel island

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The wasp species, recently discovered on Texel

Translated from the blog of Erik van der Spek, game warden on Texel island, the Netherlands:

January 22, 2013 by Erik van der Spek, Forestry Department, Texel

Last August, Theo Peeters found a female of the spider hunting wasp Aporinellus sexmaculatus at the Hors area. For the Wadden Sea islands so far, an unknown species.

Females of this species are 5-9 mm long. In the Netherlands, the Aelurillus v-insignitus jumping spider is known to be a prey of Aporinellus sexmaculatus. Spider hunting wasps catch spiders as food for their larvae. The crippled prey is dragged into a 30 cm long corridor, dug 1.5 cm below the surface. Inside the prey an egg is deposited. Besides jumping spiders, possibly crab spiders and lynx spiders may be larval food as well. Aporinellus sexmaculatus is mainly known from the Dutch mainland dunes, but also from the dunes of Schouwen island in Zeeland. A different habitat for them is the area near Maastricht.

See also here.

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Spectacular spider discovery in London Highgate tombs

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Meta bourneti spider

From Wildlife Extra:

Rare and spectacular spider find in 150 year-old tombs in London!

First record of orb weaver spider in London

January 2013. A large, rare spider has been recorded for the first time in London – deep in tombs at Highgate Cemetery.

As part of the Wild London Inclusive London project, staff at London Wildlife Trust have been working with the staff and local community of Highgate Cemetery since last summer. During a bat survey in December, Trust staff came across a population of large spiders in the vaults of the Egyptian Avenue at the Cemetery.

Britain’s largest orb weavers

Interestingly, these orb weavers are the species Meta bourneti, the rarer of two species of Meta (Britain’s largest orb weavers). The identity of the spider was confirmed by Edward Milner, Spider Recorder at the London Natural History Society – and it is the very first record of the species in London!

Meta bourneti is particularly fascinating because, due to its origins as a cave-dweller (also known as a cave spider), it requires total darkness. Even an outdoor night time environment is too bright for it, so the spiders never leave the tombs.

A sealed vault provides a perfect breeding ground. Most of these vaults – walk-in tombs designed to house around four coffins – have not been opened for several years. And, because the structures date from the late 1830s, it’s quite possible the spiders discovered have lived in the tombs for at least 150 years without being detected. Meta spiders are amongst the largest spiders found in Britain. They prey on small insects and woodlice. The females produce teardrop-shaped eggsacs, which hang suspended on a silk thread from the roof of their dwelling. When the spiderlings first emerge they are attracted to light, unlike the adults which are strongly repelled by light. This helps the spiderlings find new areas to colonise. Meta bourneti also need constant temperatures and high levels of humidity. Elsewhere in the UK, these spiders can be found in sewers, old cellars and abandoned railway tunnels.

30mm in diameter

The find is made even more exciting by the spider’s large size. Most new spider records are for tiny species, but Meta bourneti measures over 30mm in diameter with leg-span included.

100 adult spiders

In addition, the size of the population at Highgate Cemetery is substantial: A very rough initial estimate puts the number of adults at as many as a hundred. More research will now be carried out.

Tony Canning, London Wildlife Trust Community Outreach Officer for Camden and lead on the project, commented: “The discovery of this important spider population in the heart of London shows just how valuable cemeteries such as Highgate can be in providing refuges for wildlife.”

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33 new trapdoor spiders discovered, named after Obama, Jolie

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Afer United States President Obama had a long-extinct lizard named after him, now he has also inspired the naming of a still living newly discovered animal species.

Female specimen of Aptostichus barackobamai. Photo credit Jason Bond

From Wildlife Extra:

33 new trapdoor spider species discovered in the American southwest

Barak Obama & Angelina Jolie get spiders named after them
December 2012. A researcher at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History and Department of Biological Sciences has reported the discovery 33 new trapdoor spider species from the American Southwest. These newly described species all belong to the genus Aptostichus which now contains 40 species, two of which are already famous – Aptostichus stephencolberti and Aptostichus angelinajolieae.

Barack-Obama-i

The genus now includes other such notable species as Aptostichus barackobamai, named for Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and reputed fan of Spiderman comics; Aptostichus edwardabbeyi, named for environmentalist and author Edward Abbey (1927-1989); Aptostichus bonoi from Joshua Tree National Park, named for the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2; Aptostichus pennjillettei named for illusionist and intellectual Penn Jillette; Aptostichus chavezi, named for Mexican American and civil rights and labor activist César Chávez (1927-1993).

Other notable new species names include Aptostichus anzaborrego, known only from the Anza Borrego Desert State Park in southern California; and Aptostichus sarlacc from the Mojave Desert, named for George Lucas’ Star Wars creature, the Sarlacc from the fictional desert planet Tatooine.

The researcher, Prof. Jason Bond, who is a trapdoor spider expert and the director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History was excited at the prospect of such a remarkable and large find of new species here in the United States and particularly California.

Biodiversity hotspot

“California is known as what is characterized as a biodiversity hotspot. Although this designation is primarily based on plant diversity, the region is clearly very rich in its animal diversity as well. While it is absolutely remarkable that a large number of species from such a heavily populated area have gone unnoticed, it clearly speaks volumes to how little we know of the biodiversity around us and that many more species on the planet await discovery ” Bond said.

Like other trapdoor spider species, individuals are rarely seen because they live their lives in below-ground burrows that are covered by trapdoors, made by the spider using mixtures of soil, sand, and/or plant material, and silk. The trapdoor serves to hide the spider when it forages for meals at the burrow entrance, usually at night.

Aptostichus species are found in an amazing number of Californian habitats to include coastal sand dunes, chaparral, desert, oak woodland forests, and at high altitudes in the alpine habitats of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Bond said, “This particular group of trapdoor spiders are among some of the most beautiful with which I have worked; species often have gorgeous tiger-striping on their abdomens. Aptostichus to my mind represents a true adaptive radiation – a classical situation in evolutionary biology where diversification, or speciation, has occurred such that a large number of species occupy a wide range of different habitats”.

Bond also noted that while a number of the species have rather fanciful names, his favourite is the one named for his daughter Elisabeth. “Elisabeth’s spider is from an incredibly extreme desert environment out near Barstow, California that is the site of a relatively young volcanic cinder cone. The spiders make their burrows among the lava tubes that extend out from the cone – it is a spectacular place to visit but the species is very difficult to collect because the spiders build rather deep burrow among the rocks”.

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Nine new taruntula species discovered in Brazil

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This video is called Giant Tarantula.

From Wildlife Extra:

9 unusual new species of Tarantula discovered in Brazil

9 colourful and endangered tree-dwelling tarantulas discovered in Brazil

October 2012. Arboreal tarantulas are known from a few tropical places in Asia, Africa, South and Central America and the Caribbean. These tarantulas generally have a lighter build, thinner bodies and longer legs than their ground living cousins, and are much better suited for their arboreal habitat. They have increased surface area at the ends of their legs, allowing them to better climb different surfaces, while their light build makes them more agile.

Their core area is the Amazon, from where most of the species are known and are normally very common, living in the jungle or even in house’s surroundings. Now, nine new species were described from Central and Eastern Brazil, including four of the smallest arboreal species ever recorded.

‘Resurrected genus’

“Instead of the seven species formerly known in the region, we now have sixteen”, said Dr Bertani, researcher at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo. “In a resurrected genus with a mysterious single species known from 1841, we have now five species”. “These are the smallest arboreal tarantulas in the world, and their analysis suggests the genus to be very old, so they can be considered relicts of a formerly more widely distributed taxon”.

Other discoveries include new species of tarantulas living inside bromeliads. “Only a single species had been known to live exclusively inside these plants, and now we have another that specialized in bromeliads as well”. A further species was found at the top of table mountains where trees are rare. “This species also inhabits bromeliads, one of the few places for an arboreal tarantula to live that offer water and a retreat against the intense sunlight” he says.

All discovered outside the Amazon

The discovery of all these new species outside the Amazon was unexpected and illustrates how little we know of the fauna surrounding us, even from hot spots of threatened biodiversity like the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado (a kind of savannah vegetation).

Highly endemic

These species are highly endemic and the regions where they live are suffering high pressure from human activities. Therefore, studies for their conservation are necessary. Furthermore, all these new species are colourful, which could attract the interest for capturing them for the pet trade, constituting another threat.

The study was undertaken by Dr Rogério Bertani, who is a tarantula specialist and a researcher at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His results have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

See also here.

Photos are here.

USA: Tarantulas Are Busy Around Halloween, But They’re Not Trick or Treating: here.

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Big harvestman discovery in Laos

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This video is about wildlife in Laos.

From ScienceDaily:

Giant Harvestman Yet to Be Named: Arachnologist Discovers Another Giant of the Animal World in Laos

(Oct. 16, 2012) — A scientist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt has discovered a harvestman with a leg span of more than 33 centimetres. The creature found during a research trip to Laos is one of the largest representatives of the entire order worldwide. Experts have so far failed to properly identify it to species level.

The reason Dr. Peter Jäger from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt (Germany) originally flew to Laos in April was to film a major TV production. “In between takes I collected spiders from the caves in the southern province of Khammouan,” the Frankfurt arachnologist explains. In doing so, he made a sensational discovery. “In one of the caves I discovered a harvestman that was absolutely huge.” The leg span of the gigantic male harvestman was more than 33 centimetres and therefore one of the world’s largest. The current record is just over 34 centimetres leg span for a species from South America.

Initially the discovery lay hidden among other organisms and was only recognised as unique when sorted and labelled. “In attempting to categorise the creature properly, however, and give it a scientific name, I soon reached my limits,” says Jäger. The Frankfurt scientist deals mainly with huntsman spiders — harvestmen are not his particular field. Even the specialist he consulted, Ana Lucia Tourinho from the National Institute for Research of the Amazon (INPA) in Manaus, Brazil, who is currently a visiting academic at the Senckenberg Arachnology lab, could only conclude that it is probably the genus Gagrella in the Sclerosomatidae family.

“It’s a shame we can’t identify such an exceptional discovery correctly, i.e. its species,” says Jäger, “we haven’t dealt with these and related genera from China and neighbouring South East Asia before. Specialists are also unavailable due to the fact that descriptive taxonomy is no longer the main focus of research funding”.

As such, the harvestmen of the Sclerosomatidae family have invaluable potential. Specimens can be found in virtually every habitat and they constitute an ecologically very important predator group in the natural food chain.

They could serve as an indicator of the ecological state of the natural and cultural scenery. These long-legged creatures are also of interest to behavioural scientists and evolutionary biologists. For example, during courtship the male presents a nuptial gift to the female, which is intended to demonstrate his fitness. Only when the female accepts it do they mate.

The Senckenberg arachnologist would now like to investigate the Sclerosomatidae family in a detailed case study using conventional and molecular methods along with his Brazilian colleague and in collaboration with other scientists in Germany, China and Japan. The findings should then be applicable to other groups and regions. “We want to avoid a situation in future where we again lack the experts to classify such unique creatures,” says Jäger.

Meanwhile, Laos has turned out to be a veritable land of giants. Other arthropods with similar huge dimensions have been found in the same region — the Laotian huntsman spider Heteropoda maxima with a leg span of up to 30 centimetres, the whip scorpion Typopeltis magnificus with a span of 26 centimetres and the predatory centipede Thereuopoda longicornis with a total span of almost 40 centimetres.

All these organisms are more or less closely linked to caves in these karst areas. “What mechanisms or factors are responsible for this frequency of gigantism is still unclear,” says Jäger. One possible explanation is the potentially slower rate of growth in the caves. But the only thing that seems certain is that there is a limit to growth — either due to the lack of oxygen supply to the long appendages or because when fleeing or catching prey long legs can no longer be moved quickly enough.

Whatever the case, Laos offers enough potential to discover great things!

Saving Britain’s rare spiders

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This video is about fen raft spiders.

From Wildlife Extra:

Rare Fen raft spiders released to boost Britain’s dwindling populations

Massive spider seeks des-res – must have standing water and insects

October 2012. The fen raft spider was, until recently, found in only three sites in Britain – in Norfolk, East Sussex and South Wales – and in danger of being lost altogether from our countryside. Natural England has been helping to find new homes for the species and improve its fortunes.

Captive rearing

In 2010, Natural England started a captive rearing project to bolster the wild population as part of its Species Recovery Programme. In that year, 3,000 baby spiders (or ‘spiderlings’) were artificially reared in the kitchen of Dr Helen Smith – an ecologist working with Natural England – who had looked after them continuously from spring onwards. They were kept in separate test tubes, so they didn’t eat each other, and each was fed by hand with fruit flies. Hours of intensive care produced a bumper batch of these rare spiderlings, which were released into their wetland habitat at Suffolk Wildlife Trust‘s (SWT) Castle Marshes reserve.

Semi-aquatic spider

The fen raft spider is one of our largest and rarest spiders and, being semi-aquatic, needs a watery home. Its decline has probably been due to the historic loss of its favoured habitats – fen and grazing marsh – and a drop in quality of the habitat remaining. They are ambush predators, lurking on the water surface to pounce on their prey, which they detect through vibration-sensitive hairs on their feet. Unfussy and opportunistic, they will eat anything they can overpower, from pond skaters to sticklebacks. To move across the water surface, they use their legs to ‘row’, ‘gallop’ or ‘sail’ (by raising some of their legs as sails). The spiderlings usually take two years to reach breeding maturity, and this year there have been over 40 nursery webs at Castle Marshes.

10,000 released in 2011

3,000 spiderlings is a lot of work for one person, and last year a partnership of zoos from the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) stepped into help. Four zoos accepted up to 400 spiderlings each from Helen to rear for re-introduction. Almost 10,000 spiders were released into the wild in 2011 and it’s hoped enough of them will have survived to establish a new breeding population next year.

90% survival

Helen devised the test tube rearing techniques with the John Innes Centre in Norwich and has reared 5,000 spiderlings in her own kitchen over the last three years. She said “I think everyone who does captive rearing gets very attached to them. The baby spiders each have their own test-tube to avoid them eating each other so you have to devote yourself to feeding them for three months. We achieve survival rates of around 90% over this period, when survival in the wild would be very low.

Wetland restoration

“Of course it is the fantastic work by many conservation bodies to restore some of our best wetland areas that makes this project possible. The fen raft spiders now need a helping hand to colonise these areas.”

Assisting Helen in 2012 were Dudley Zoo (co-ordinating), Bristol Zoo, Beale Park, Chessington World of Adventures, Chester Zoo, The Deep, Lakeland Wildlife Oasis, ZSL London Zoo, Reaseheath Agricultural College and Tilgate Nature Centre. In October, a total of 2,500 spiderlings were released at the RSPB’s Mid-Yare reserve in Norfolk and at two other East Anglian sites. The programme aims to increase the number of populations from 3 to 12 by 2020. Although it is still very early days for the project, the increase to four populations is an encouraging start.

About the fen raft spider

Scientific name: Dolomedes plantarius
First discovered in Britain: 1956 by Dr. Eric Duffey. This species was first discovered in the UK at Redgrave and Lopham Fen National Nature Reserve at the source of the River Waveney, in East Anglia.
Habitat: fens and wetlands with sedges or water soldier on which to build its nursery web.
Lifespan: The spiders usually take two years to mature: once adult, the female can produce two egg sacs during the summer but dies before winter.
Breeding habits: after mating in early summer the female builds a silk sac in which she lays up to 700 eggs. She carries the egg sac in her jaws for around 3 weeks and then guards the young until they are old enough to face the outside world. Although they don’t spin webs to catch their prey, they care for their young in a large tent-like nursery webs built in vegetation above the water.
Size: males up to 18mm body length. Females up to 23mm body length.
Food: any animal small enough to tackle. The FRS is one of the few spiders big enough to catch vertebrates such as fishes and newts. The spiders can literally walk on water and hunt for prey both at the water surface and underwater.
Conservation Status: UK Red Data Book 1. It is a BAP/S41 species and one of only two UK spiders to be fully protected by law under the Wildlife and the Countryside Act 1981.
The fen raft spider is listed on the England Biodiversity Strategy requiring special help if they are to recover and thrive again in England.

Eight-eyed jumping spiders have a near 360-degree view of the world and can be captivated by humans and nature videos: here.