Rediscovered Species 2020

CheeseChameleon2007 said:
But quick question, why did they originally thought it might be extinct?
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Yes, its a shame the article is behind a paywall.

Not an arachnologist but just from literally a minute or two reading it would appear that it had only ever been registered on three sites which were all in the count of Surrey (which is just outside of London) and had last been seen in 1999.

Somehow I don't think it was ever believed to be extinct but rather was classified as "critically endangered" in the UK and it is also apparently found on the European continent so is not a British endemic species.

If it ever was considered to be extinct perhaps this would have been hypothesized due to land use changes ? I have no idea really. If you are interested you could contact the Natural History Museum in London and find out maybe ?

It was found on MOD land (Ministry of Defence) so army training ground and in fact these areas are important in conservation terms both in the UK and globally for biodiversity (USA, Russia, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Israel etc). This is because they tend to be largely untouched for most of the year except for occasional field drills and firing practice.
 
I think I am more than a little knowledgable about UK species, and, up until the recent press releases it was not a species I had heard of other than being one of the UK’s 650+ spider species. It seems as though it was a possibly lost species, not seen for a while and without evidence of continued UK survival. Good news that it has been found, and the MOD have an excellent track record of active conservation on their sites.
 
Tetzoo Quizzer said:
I think I am more than a little knowledgable about UK species, and, up until the recent press releases it was not a species I had heard of other than being one of the UK’s 650+ spider species. It seems as though it was a possibly lost species, not seen for a while and without evidence of continued UK survival. Good news that it has been found, and the MOD have an excellent track record of active conservation on their sites.
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Its brilliant news indeed, I agree, and it does make you think what other invert species could potentially be on MOD land.
 
Dassie rat said:
I went to a wildlife talk about MOD land. Relatively few people go there so the wildlife is undisturbed most of the time. There could be many new invertebrate species there.
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I assume it could also be good habitat for birds, reptiles and amphibians, small birds and small mammals too.

I seem to remember reading that butterfly and moth biodiversity in particular is very high on MOD land.
 
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