Two tarantulas may be on loose after babies found in Derbyshire car park

Baby spiders were abandoned in pots and RSPCA says witness saw parents scuttling away

Josh HallidayNorth of England correspondent

Mon 16 Jul 2018 09.40 BSTFirst published on Mon 16 Jul 2018 09.39 BST

Two tarantulas may be on the loose in a village after three of their babies were found abandoned in a car park.

The RSPCA said it had rescued the baby Brazilian bird-eating spiders after they were found discarded in pots in Derbyshire.

Inspectors said the containers were run over by a vehicle in the village of Somercotes but the driver believes he saw two “larger spiders” possibly the parents – scuttling away.

The tarantula is thought to be the Brazilian salmon pink bird-eater, one of the world’s largest of the species with a leg span of up to 25cm.

The spiders are partially pink and usually live on the forest floor in Brazil and eat insects, lizards, mice and the occasional small bird.

Experts said the missing tarantulas may not survive long in English weather. Yet the unseasonably warm climate has led to concerns they may roam for longer than expected.

Kristy Ludlam, an RSPCA inspector, said an “understandably shaken” woman had found the baby spiders in Bateman’s Yard livery stable’s car park in Somercotes last Thursday and contacted the RSPCA as she is terrified of them.

Continued 

'Incredible population' of crayfish near roundabout

A major roadworks scheme is being further delayed because of the discovery of an "incredible population" of rare native crayfish.

The native white-clawed crayfish (left) is threatened 

by the American signal crayfish

White-clawed crayfish are usually found in isolated streams in Britain, but hundreds have been found in a brook near a busy roundabout in Derbyshire.

The Highways Agency said 120 crayfish were initially found near the Little Eaton Island, and then relocated.

A further 100 have now been found during dredging of the brook.

Dredging has not yet finished, meaning more could be found.

Trevor Taylor, from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, said: "That is an incredible population.

"I was involved in de-siltation works on the Markeaton Brook. You were only talking about handfuls of crayfish, which again was considered to be a decent population.

"Now you are finding hundreds or so, that is a significant population."

Continued

Wildlife crimes in police spotlight

A WILDLIFE summit, aimed at seeing how crimes against animals and birds of prey can be better policed, is taking place in Derbyshire.

The event, organised by the county's police and crime commissioner, Alan Charles, will take place in South Normanton in September.

Mr Charles announced the news following the publication of a report he commissioned, produced by Derbyshire police, which highlighted how in the last year officers had been made aware of 200 incidents involving wildlife. These include poaching, badger baiting, hare coursing and the poisoning of birds of prey.

The RSPCA and the RSPB were also asked to contribute to the report, which was heard at yesterday's meeting of the strategic governance board at force headquarters in Ripley. In it the RSPB explained how last year a goshawk nest was deliberately destroyed in the north of the county and that there might now not be any breeding pairs in Derbyshire.

Read more: http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/Crimes-wildlife-focus-special-police-summit/story-19555917-detail/story.html#ixzz2Zs379UQW

1,000 English Ants to Receive Radio Tags

About 1,000 northern hairy wood ants are expected to have tiny radio tags, about 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) long, attached to their bodies, allowing researchers to track their movements on a protected English estate.

The wood ants, which get their name from the "eyebrows" visible through a microscope, live in colonies housed within nests connected by trails worn into the ground by years of ant traffic. The biologist doing the work, Samuel Ellis of the University of York, intends to examine how the ants interact with one another.

The results are expected to help staff at the Longshaw Estate in Derbyshire manage the estate — a natural and archaeological site —with the ants' needs in mind.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/22801-english-ants-transmitters-tracking.html

Tags to shed light on northern hairy ants' movements

Researchers are planning to fit tiny tags to a protected species of ant in order to gain an insight into the insects' behaviour.

A team from the University of York will fit the devices to 1,000 northern hairy ants - the UK's largest ant species.

Although ants have been tagged in laboratories before, the project will be the first to attempt to track the movement of the creatures in the wild.

The project will take place on the National Trust's Longshaw Estate.

The site in Derbyshire is home to more than 1,000 nests and and estimate 50 million worker hairy ants.

Multiple nests

Sam Ellis, from the University of York, said the study would help answer questions about how the colony of ants organise themselves.

Read on:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19359555

Motorist called police after spotting puma-like big cat (via Paul Cropper)

Motorist called police after spotting puma-like big cat
22 October 2009
Derby Evening Telegraph
(c) 2009 Evening Telegraph

A Sighting of a big black cat, described as "like a puma", has been reported near Belper. The animal was seen by a driver close to Idridgehay at about 5pm last Friday. He called police. The man, travelling from Wirksworth to Duffield on his way home to Mickleover, described the animal to officers as much bigger than a domestic cat and with a long tail.

The details were also passed on to a police officer who keeps a list of similar sightings in the area. These include an incident in June 2005, when officers investigated a suspected big cat attack on animals in Belper. Two years later, a motorist reported seeing a black creature crossing the main road in Brassington and heading for the outskirts of the village. They described it as bigger than a dog and looking like a panther.

Later that summer, three people said they saw a large black cat the size of a panther in a field at Ashford-in-the-Water. In December 2007, a couple phoned police describing a large black animal with a long thin tail, in a lane in the village of Hackney, in Matlock. And in January of this year, villagers in Whatstandwell said a black cat was seen on a patio and jumped 8ft when it was startled and ran off.