Overview
- Entomologists Mark Telfer and Graeme Lyons found Aulonia albimana during a brief survey and documented it in the final minutes before their departure.
- The spiders were located in a remote, overgrown area of Newtown National Nature Reserve accessible only by boat, about 2km from the species’ former colony.
- The species had not been recorded in the UK since 1985 and was increasingly feared extinct, according to the British Arachnological Society.
- Habitat management, including grazing by Hebridean sheep, restored the patchy open ground the species prefers; the team informally dubbed it the “white‑knuckled wolf spider.”
- Ahead of formal monitoring, conservationists plan surveys to map the population and define the conditions needed to secure its future.