DUDLEY Zoo has been recognised for its conservation work in saving the UK’s rarest and biggest arachnid.

The Castle Hill tourist attraction was awarded gold in the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums Awards for its project with the fen raft spider.

The project, which began in 2011, saw the zoo work with nine other zoos across the UK to act as foster parents to 2,450 fen raft spiderlings.

For two months, former presenter Caroline Howard played ‘mum’ to 400 one to two-week-old babies, individually feeding each one fruit flies every few days, using a pooter to blow the food into the test tube for them.

The spiders - which are one of two species fully protected by UK law - were then released back into the wild, where monitoring of their populations still continues.

Chris Leeson, the zoo's conservation officer, said: “We’re thrilled to be recognised for our work with fen rafts.

“Rearing them in captivity increases their slim survival chances in the wild to over 90 per cent, so without projects like this one, where we’ve been able to give the species a helping hand to repopulate and hopefully help secure its future, it would’ve been difficult for the arachnid to recover on its own.”