\n Just in time for Halloween, a sighting of the Purseweb Spider has been made at Kinver Edge in South Staffordshire \u2013 the first ever recording in the county.\n<\/p>\n
\n This secretive, tube-building spider, often called Britain\u2019s \u201cmini tarantula\u201d, as it is part of the same family of spiders as the tarantula, has been found living in the heathland soils of Kingsford Heath,\u00a0where a diverse landscape of rare, lowland heathland has been created to support nature and wildlife.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Kingsford Heath, the area of Kinver Edge where visitor Matthew Rigby discovered the spider, was restored to its former heathland landscape 20 years ago by Worcestershire County Council and this management has continued under the care of the National Trust.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Heathland is characterised by wide, open landscape, dominated by scattered trees and low-growing shrubs, such as gorse, heather and grasses. Sandy soils provide ideal habitats for lots of invertebrates, including the rare Purseweb Spider.\n<\/p>\n
\n National Trust Countryside Manager Ewan Chapman said: \u201cThe Purseweb Spider is a fascinating yet elusive species.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Purseweb Spider is oftern called “Britain’s mini tarantula” (Image: Matthew Rigby)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt spends most of its life underground, hiding in a silk-lined burrow capped with a camouflaged \u201cpurse\u201d of web.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cUnsuspecting insects walking over the surface are ambushed and dragged below \u2013 the stuff of Halloween nightmares!\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe discovery of the spider is regionally significant, as well as being a good indicator that our work to restore the heath on Kinver Edge is really paying off. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe are now hoping to restore an area of conifer plantation, which was previously an area of open habitat,\u00a0on the Worcestershire side of Kinver Edge in Blakeshall Common.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis phase of work will help us stop\u00a0the extinction of rare species on the site and hopefully attract wildlife back to the heathland habitats we’re planning to restore.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Andy Perry, Nature Conservation Adviser, added: \u201cThis is a significant find for the region \u2013 the Purseweb spider is a nationally scarce species that doesn\u2019t appear to have been recorded in Staffordshire or Worcestershire before.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt also goes to show the important role that our visitors can play by recording and sharing their wildlife sightings with us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n As one of the UK\u2019s rarest habitats, heathland needs to be managed and maintained.\n<\/p>\n
\n National Trust Rangers at Kinver Edge care for the heath by grazing livestock and cutting vegetation to control invasive plants.\n<\/p>\n
\n Without these interventions, the landscape quickly becomes over-taken by bracken, scrub or woodland, and this rare habitat, which supports lots of wildlife, is lost.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just in time for Halloween, a sighting of the Purseweb Spider has been made at Kinver Edge in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-234963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}