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Raft Spider

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Close-up of a female raft spider holding a gray egg sac beneath her body among bright green leaves

Raft Spiders

Raft Spiders are nationally scarce but relatively common in the New Forest.

They live around shallow pools and boggy wetland areas, and tend to hunt on the surface of the water rather than spinning a web.

There were several recordings of Raft Spiders during the Species Survival Fund project, which created, restored and expanded wetland habitats to enable this species and other threatened wetland species to expand their populations into the surrounding countryside.