Learning English - Words in the News
19 October, 2006 - Published 08:40 GMT
Rare spiders move home
If building work is done in your home you might have to move out but would you consider taking the spiders in your house with you! That's what's happening in Cambridgeshire where a colony of rare spiders was found in a property due for reconstruction. This report from BBC Cambridgeshire:
Listen to the story
About 100 rare cave spiders are being moved to a new home after being discovered on a derelict site earmarked for housing.
The cave spiders had taken over a disused air raid shelter near Papworth Hospital. South Cambridgeshire District Council ecology officer Rob Mungovan said the shelter mimics conditions of a cave. Mr Mungovan, who checks for rare species before he lets the developers start work, discovered the population of spiders.
He said: "Maybe these spiders have come from the ancient woodland we have here in Papworth. There may have been relic populations in large hollow trees or a juvenile spider may have found a suitable habitat here and found a mate and established a population."
The spiders are being moved one by one because they are likely to eat each other if they were all moved together as they are highly predatory.
Cave spiders are large, dark bronze arachnids that spin small open webs. The spiders have only been found in a dozen places in the UK and never recorded before in Cambridgeshire.
A South Cambridgeshire District Council spokesman said the spiders are to be put in separate boxes and moved to a new shelter on the other side of the hospital.
Listen to the words
derelict
empty and in a poor condition
earmarked for housing
if a site is 'earmarked for housing' it means that it has been officially decided that that area will be use for the building of houses
disused
not used any more
air raid shelter
a building for people to use at time of war to protect them from bombs or missles
mimics
copies, has the same qualities as
a suitable habitat
a good place to live
highly
very
predatory
with the habit of killing and eating other animals
arachnids
formal word for spiders
webs
the network of very fine threads that spiders make to catch insects
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