'Gorgeous' Spider Presumed Extinct Found Alive And Kicking at UK Military Base

 A 2-inch-long (5 centimeters) spider thought to be extinct in Great Britain is truly alive and thriving on a British military base.

 A program manager at the Surrey Wildlife Trust rediscovered the nice fox-spider (Alopecosa fabrilis) on an undeveloped portion of a facility in Surrey, England, after a two-year search. The last time the spider was seen before this in Britain was in 1993, or 27 years ago. 

"It's a beautiful spider if you're into that sort of thing," the program manager Mike Waite told The Guardian.

Nocturnal hunter

The great fox-spider maybe a spider, a family of arachnids that hunts down its prey instead of building webs. The spider is nocturnal, which makes it an elusive quarry for spider enthusiasts.

According to The Guardian, Waite used aerial photography of the facility to search out bare patches where the spiders wish to hunt. His search in these sandy spots paid off after many fruitless nights. 

"As soon as my torch fell on that I knew what it absolutely was. I used to be elated," Waite said. "With coronavirus, there are plenty of ups and downs this year, and that I also turned 60, so it had been an honest celebration of that."

Waite found several male spiders, one female, and possibly some immature spiderlings, though the latter were difficult to spot conclusively.

The adult spiders have gray-and-brown furry bodies. they'll spin silk, but rather than making webs, they use that silk to line the burrows that they dig so as to hibernate over the winter. Great fox-spiders are critically endangered, but they're also found on the ECU mainland, particularly on coastal sand dunes in Holland and Denmark, consistent with The Guardian.

Waite wonders whether the spiders also are quietly surviving on Britain's coastlines. 

"It makes me think how hard have we sought for it on our coasts? Have we been looking hard enough?" he told The Guardian.

Alopecosa fabrilis female. (Michael Hohner/Wiki/CC By 3.0)

Conserving space for wildlife

The Surrey Wildlife Trust manages thousands of acres of undeveloped land within the Surrey area to guard wildlife. Ministry of Defence sites also are prime realty for animals, because they're left relatively undisturbed aside from the grooming exercises that occur there.

For security reasons, the researchers are keeping confidential the identity of the positioning where they found the good fox-spiders, but it consists of the scrubby heartland that also provides a home for native birds, snakes, lizards, and butterflies.

"Many people are unaware of the scale and variety of the Defence estate and its tremendous wildlife richness," Rich Lowey, the top of technical services at the Defense Infrastructure Organization, said during a statement.

"It has generally been shielded from agricultural intensification and concrete development, so it now provides a significant sanctuary for several of the country's most rare and species and habitats."

Waite now plans to continue his survey for the spiders so as to estimate the dimensions of their population.