Water is essential to the whole life cycle of the great raft spider.

The great raft spider has only been identified at three sites in the UK.

Great raft spiders are predatory and hunt from perches at the waters edge.

Meet the predatory great raft spider - an East Anglian speciality.

The great raft spider, as with most other Dolomedes species, is a semi-aquatic spider.

If the new population successfully establishes itself it will be one of only four great raft spider populations in the UK.

The closely related great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) is similar in size, habits and appearance, but lives in fens.

Great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius)

The great raft spider is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List.

Redgrave and Lopham fen was the first site in the UK at which a population of the great raft spider was recorded.

The Great raft spider ( also known as the Fen raft spider) is a declining species and is listed as vulnerable.

Pond-dwelling species that are rare in the UK which have been observed here include the mud snail, great raft spider and a species of water scavenger beetle.

The great raft spider or fen raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) is a European species of spider in the Pisauridae family.

The species is currently recognised as Dolomedes plantarius and has two widely recognised common names; the great raft spider and the fen raft spider.

The great raft spider, (D. plantarius) lives in fens, and is listed as endangered in Great Britain and is globally vulnerable.

Redgrave and Lopham Fen in Norfolk, one of the two remaining haunts of the great raft spider, has been declared England's 143rd National Nature Reserve.

In Spring Fever - The Precarious Future of Britain's Flora and Fauna, he warns that species as varied as bluebells, mountain hares and the great raft spider - currently the subject of a reintroduction programme by English Nature - will be among the casualties.

In October 2010 the first introduction of a great raft spider population into a new site in the UK was carried out in a joint project by Natural England and Suffolk Wildlife Trust and supported by a grant from the BBC Wildlife Fund.

While few organizations agree completely on which spiders are endangered or threatened, a few commonly listed species are the Spruce-fir moss spider, the Dolloff cave spider, the Great raft spider, the Kauai cave wolf spider, the Katipo, and at a lower risk the Brachypelma smithi.

It contains several rare species and is the home of Britain's rarest spider, the great raft spider, which is known in only one other site in the UK (at Pevensey in East Sussex) and has all but disappeared elsewhere in Europe because of the draining of its fenland habitats.

The closely related great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) is similar in size, habits and appearance, but lives in fens.

Great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius)

The great raft spider or fen raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) is a European species of spider in the Pisauridae family.

Redgrave and Lopham Fen was the first site in the UK at which a population of the fen raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) was recorded.

"The status and conservation of the fen raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) at Redgrave and Lopham Fen National Nature Reserve, England".

The mud snail (Omphiscola glabra), Enochrus isotae species of water scavenger beetle and the great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius), which are rare or endangered in the UK, are among the many species that have been recorded in the site's ponds.