Translated material
Nearly extinct species of rat-sized spider saved
Huntsman striped spiders are experiencing a baby boom in the UK. Just 14 years ago, this species almost went extinct completely due to the fact that humans destroyed many places that served as a natural habitat for spiders. But zoos came to the rescue, breeding spiders and releasing them since 2010. The Independent reports this.
Chester Zoo reported that the streaked hunter was experiencing a baby boom on its X account. When the species became endangered in 2010, Chester Zoo began breeding the spiders and released thousands of them in 2014, while continuing to grow them yourself. Thanks to their efforts, the species is experiencing a "record-breaking mating season."
“We breed the hunter stripe right here at the zoo, and we are incredibly happy to report that there are over 10,000 female [of the species] living here. <…> And they just had the record-breaking mating season on record. They [spiders] are impossible to miss: they grow as big as the palm of your hand,” Chester Zoo wrote in its X.
Zoo officials said that to save the species, they took several hundred of the species' babies and placed them in separate test tubes "to prevent the spiders from eating each other." They said they had to hand-feed each spider small flies using forceps every day, "day after day, for weeks on end" in a closed and secure nursery.
The streaked hunter is the largest of the 660 species of arachnids native to Britain; They usually have a black or brown body and white stripes. Spiders of the species can weave webs up to 25 centimeters in diameter and grow to the size of a rat. At the same time, they are completely harmless to humans.
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