Fens set for invasion of the spiderlings

Some 3,000 baby fen raft spiders – a species found in just two sites in England – were bred in the kitchen of ecologist Dr Helen Smith.

Dr Smith then hand-reared many of the baby spiders, while others were brought up 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.

The "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 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.