Giant spiders the size of the palm of your hand are popping up across the U.S. Here’s why you shouldn’t be afraid
There’s a spider that makes a home in Southern California that’s the size of the palm of your hand and flies through the air.
Although the Joro spider, an invasive species that has been seen throughout the United States, including in California, is not dangerous, its size and the web it builds can be seen as props for a horror movie.
“They’re not medically important,” said Pat Wooden, head of the entomology lab at Virginia Tech. “They’re big insects, but they won’t bite you and cause a lot of damage. They’re quite stable, so there’s not much we can do against them. Their spiders can be up to 10 meters.”
The spider was recently found in California, with the first report in October, Wooden said. They have no natural predators and have a large web capable of capturing a wide variety of prey, including beetles, wasps and stink bugs. Spiders also know how to distance themselves from each other.
Wooden recommends that people try not to panic and do nothing if they happen to see one. Spiders help humans by acting as natural pest control, eating mosquitoes, biting flies and stink bugs. Their venom is not dangerous to humans or pets and they rarely bite.
Spiders disperse by “ballooning,” where the spiders release silk that is caught in the wind, letting them fly. This lie gives people the impression that spiders can somehow fly.
“They are incredibly popular and people interact with them a lot,” she said. “We have passed by people thinking that they have flown, which is a really scary thing that they brought with them.”
The first time the spider was seen in the US was in Georgia in 2014, possibly brought into the country in shipping containers from China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, Wooden said.
Spiders are most common in Appalachia and have been seen in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio and Florida.
“We learned that we will cooperate with them,” said Wooden. “They’re getting more and more common across the Southeast. When we were just working in Tennessee, every rock alcove had one in it.”
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources found the spider so interesting that they created a website, Jorowatch.org, to track where spiders have appeared across the country. Most reported in Georgia. The website shows some spiders reported as recently as October in Santa Barbara County.
According to the website, the spiders are active from September to October and are orb weavers known for spinning wheel-shaped webs. They can be identified by a yellow belly with red markings, and a golden web color.
Male Joro spiders are 0.25 inches in size and usually brown while female spiders are 1.25 inches and usually yellow.
The spiders’ white egg sacs, usually laid between October and November, are usually attached to leaves, tree bark and flat structures and contain 400 to 500 eggs, according to Jorowatch.
