Drugs worth £30,000 seized in crackdown

Tidal spider named after singer Marley

DRUGS worth more than £30,000 have been seized in a series of raids across the Highlands and Islands.

Operation RAM saw 26 search warrants enforced, resulting in 18 substance recoveries and £7,000 being taken.

Five people appeared from custody in relation to these warrants and inquiries into a number of cases are ongoing.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Sutherland, who leads Operation RAM, said: “Over the last few weeks we have used information supplied to us by concerned members of the public to target those involved in the sale and supply of illegal drugs.

“By continuing to pass on information we can continue to marginalise people in your communities who think it is OK to be involved in drug dealing and organised crime by stopping them in the street, in their cars and searching their homes.”

There were 54 searches also carried out on people in the street or in vehicles which resulted in further recoveries. A NEW species of marine spider that only emerges at low tide has been named after reggae legend Bob Marley.

The species was only discovered in January 2009 when the sea along the coast of Queensland in Australia receded to such an extent that it exposed a population of water-adapted spiders.

The researchers who would later describe the spiders as a species new to science, were quick to associate their emergence with reggae legend Bob Marley and his song High Tide Or Low Tide.

They described the new Bob Marley’s intertidal spider in a paper published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics.

The researchers said that unlike the spiders which people are familiar with, the intertidal species, listed under the scientific name of Desis bobmarleyi, are “truly marine”.

Study co-author Doctor Barbara Baehr, of Queensland Museum, said : “To breathe, they build air chambers from silk.”