- Get ready for spiders the size of your palm to fly. They could be coming to your neighborhood soon.
- Joro spiders are spreading rapidly across the southeastern US and are now moving north.
- Although poisonous, Joro spiders are not harmful to humans and prefer to live outdoors.
It sounds like the stuff of nightmares: monster-sized venomous spiders floating through the air and invading the northeastern US this summer.
But some experts say invasive fruit flies can do more damage than the colorful Joro spider, AP News reported.
However, it is easy to understand why the spider sounds scary.
They can measure up to 3 inches with their feet apart, about the size of your palm and far apart larger than a quarter inch house spider.
Giant spiders migrating in the northeastern US
Originally native to Asia, they have been rapidly moving into the southeastern U.S. since first appearing in Georgia around 2010, according to study published last year in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
And the invasive species is heading north, according to the study authors. Once they arrive, people are likely to spot their webs — a distinctive golden color — in trees or on their porches, according to UGA Today.
“This spider will be able to inhabit most of the eastern US,” said David Coyle, a professor at Clemson University who worked on the research. he told the Clemson News in 2023 adding that “their comfort zone in their native region fits very well with much of North America.”
Cooler temperatures don't seem to bother them. Black-and-yellow spiders survive just fine in northern Honshu, Japan, where winter temperatures can reach between 25 and 32 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Penn State Extension.
“Barring some unforeseen conjuncture, we expect the range of these things to continue to expand, probably northward, and we've already seen that with some populations in Maryland,” Coyle added.
The experts from NJ Pest Control they predict the spiders could reach New Jersey and New York this year, possibly by summer.
“It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when,” Russell Shibb, entomologist and owner of NJ Pest Control, told Business Insider.
“They're going to get to the Northeast at some point, and we think they'll be here sometime this year,” he said, adding that they've already been spotted in Baltimore.
A shy spider that prefers the outdoors
Although the huge creatures are venomous, they are not dangerous to humans beyond causing a swollen, red bite, Sieb told BI. And they don't want to sting you anyway.
“They don't want to bite things they can't eat if they can help it,” said University of Kentucky entomologist Jonathan Larson. he said in 2022.
They also pose no danger to pets and researchers have were found they may be the shyest spiders ever recorded.
Aside from their size, there's another feature of Joro spiders that makes them a little creepy: They can fly. Well, sort of.
Joro “flying” spiders
Orb-weaving arachnids do not have wings, but can travel by “ballooning,” a technique where they release a strand of silk that allows the wind to carry them. Sieb said they can travel about 3 miles using this method.
Fortunately for arachnophobes though, Joro spiders usually don't want to come inside homes – they're outdoor pests that usually choose to web in open spaces like parks, ball fields or suburban properties, although they may also seek out wooded areas or the doors of the buildings, Sieb said.
And, even though the species is invasive, you probably won't be fighting hundreds of them left and right.
“It's not going to be like any Alfred Hitchcock movie or anything like that with them all over the place,” Sieb said.
Although they live close to each other, Joro spiders don't seem to interact much with other individuals, per se UGA Cooperative Extension.
“This is a predator,” Sieb told BI. “So there will be carrying capacity for the area. So you might have two on one property maybe, or not even two.”
How these spiders will affect the ecosystems they invade remains an open question. Joro spiders love to eat another invasive species, lanternflies. However, there is no chance that the spiders will help eradicate the plant-eating pest, according to AP News.
“A lot of people think this spider is destroying the ecosystem, and we really don't, at least not yet,” Andy Davis, a research assistant at the University of Georgia, told UGA News.
