Mothercare spiders
September 27th, 2009 | by lucy |
The Mothercare spider (Theridion sisyphium), common in the UK and continental Europe, has earned its name by the way the females look after their young.
Very small and strikingly marked, Mothercare spiders often pitch their webs in thistles and gorse, whose spines offer a defence against predators, as well as being useful for anchoring the web. The contrasting brown/black and white patterns on the abdomen turn out to be an effective camouflage, as they break up the shape of the spider.
Within the web, the female spider builds a dense silk retreat among leaves and leftovers of eaten insects. Here the spiderlings will hatch from a blue-green egg-sac. In their first days they are fed by their mother, who regurgitates digested food into their mouths, behaviour we associate with birds. While nestlings signal their hunger by opening their bills wide, baby Mothercare spiders clutch at their mother’s legs to remind her it’s time to eat again. Soon they will be tucking into whole insects, which the mother has softened for them by breaking down the tough exterior. The spiderlings then begin to help catch the prey with their own silk.
The advantage of this intensive nurturing is that Mothercare spiderlings grow extremely quickly. In contrast, the mother loses weight and shrinks.
The photograph shows a female Mothercare spider with an egg-sac in her retreat, where you can see remnants of past meals. It was taken by James Lindsey and there are many more fascinating images on his Ecology of Commanster site.
Fears about the impact of last December’s severe weather, the coldest in 100 years, were unfounded. The drop in small bird populations witnessed in the 
The oldest osprey of the UK – and probably the world – has returned to her eyrie in the Scottish highlands. When she left for West Africa at the end of last summer, no one expected her to return. At 26 she’s lived 3 times longer than most female ospreys. In her life she’s laid 58 eggs and hatched 48 chicks, a massive individual contribution to the survival of ospreys in Scotland, where there are still only about 200 breeding pairs. The questions now are if her mate will return and if she is still fertile. Events can be followed on the 
The construction company currently finishing off the Shard building in London, which will be the UK’s tallest skyscraper, recently had to call the council to remove a squatter from the 72nd floor: a young fox. He was surviving on scraps left by builders. After a check-up at the Riverside Animal Centre, the fox has been released on the streets of Bermondsey, having shown the type of curiosity we associate with cats. 
Otters, water voles and fish are all benefitting from the improved quality of the UK’s waterways, now described as the cleanest since the industrial revolution. Since almost disappearing from the wild in the 1970s, otters are thriving, particularly in the south west of England, Cumbria and Northumberland. The population of water voles, highly precarious in the 1990s, is also beginning to recover. The good results of stricter pollution controls and extensive conservation work are set to continue in the new year with the introduction of new European water quality directives. 
