Short Stuff: Joro Spiders

These invasive spiders are everywhere these days. But how did they get to the USA and are they harmful? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:39Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry there, and we're caught in a web of greatness because this is short stuff from stuff you should know.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  Are you sure?

• 0:51Josh Clark?

  Oh, my brain got zapped for a second there.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  You know, I just saw a Joro spider today eating, either eating a bee or fighting a bee. I don't know what was going on, but it was tangling with a bee.

• 1:06Josh Clark?

  Could have been two different steps.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Perhaps.

• 1:10Josh Clark?

  I've seen a bunch of them myself. We have them all over the house and I had been remarking to myself like, wow, these things are all over the place. And you sent this and I was like, oh, that's why they're an invasive species here in Georgia, South Carolina for sure. And they're starting to move a little bit northwestward into other southern states like Tennessee and Alabama, but definitely up the eastern seaboard. And what we're talking about is what CNN called giant venomous Joro spiders are infiltrating parts of the US. Can you believe that?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  I mean, they're venomous, they're giant and they are invading, but come on.

• 1:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So after you guys hear the short stuff, you will realize how just preposterous that headline from CNN is.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So the scientific name of these beautiful, beautiful spiders are Nephila clavata and they are from East Asia and they got over here, like a lot of things get over here, which is in like shipping containers and stuff. A lot of times it's like lumber. This is how you get a lot of insects coming in. And they came over from East Asia and really made a home here in the Southeast since I think 2013 is when they first spotted them in Georgia.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Georgia leads the way in Joro spiders.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, Atlanta is the the hub.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think my house is the hub, actually.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  They're, well, you're also seeing a lot of them now because the adults come out and spin their webs in August, September, October.

• 2:43Josh Clark?

  So like you said, they're from East Asia and in Japan, they're called Joro gumo. And the reason I say Joro, a lot of people say Joro, which makes sense because it's spelled J O R O. But in the Japanese spelling, there's a long symbol over the second O. So the first one would not be a hard O, it'd be Joro.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  And that means entangling or binding bride, and you'll see why they call them that. In Korea, they're called mudang gumi, which means shaman or fortune teller. So however you slice it, these things have pretty cool names and aptly so because like you said, they're just absolutely beautiful and they are pretty good size enough so that you can see like all of them pretty clearly.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they're big, they're orb weavers, so they're gonna weave those big, beautiful webs that, I mean, their webs can be 10 feet wide. The one I almost walked into the other day, like face first, was probably about four feet wide and strung between two outdoor umbrellas that were not close to each other. So I don't know if that part counts as the width or not. If that does, it was more like eight feet.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  But if you've seen these things and you said like, oh, that's just a garden spider. We had those when I was growing up. What are you talking about, guys? Not the same spider. The garden spider looks a lot like it, but there are some differences because they're, well, different spiders. Garden spiders, the females are bigger than the males. And as far as the markings go, the garden spiders have yellow and black basically only. And the Joros have yellow and dark blue with a little bit of red on their belly.

• 4:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they also have orange bands like around their legs. They're just really, really pretty. Um, the males of the Jurospiders too are smaller and they're kind of drab looking. So if you ever see a Jurospider and you're like, wow, that is a cool looking spider. It's a, it's a female every time. And then the other dead giveaway is, uh, if it's spinning a web, it's a female. Cause only the females spin webs for Jurospiders. And you said you walked face first into, or you almost walked face first into a web?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 4:55Josh Clark?

  Have you ever run into one?

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, I've walked through some, some spider webs in my day. Like, uh, you do that a lot when you're like backpack, backpacking, cause you don't see them on the trail. Um, so that happens a lot. Uh, and here that like, I walked through one earlier, just kind of on my arms. But it wasn't, you know, the, the nightmare scene where it's, you realize it three inches from the spider being on your face, kind of thing.

• 5:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So one of the things that's, um, characteristic of Jurospider webs is they don't necessarily break. Like it takes a lot to just walk through them. Like you can walk through them and you're kind of going to bounce off a little bit. It's not, you know, not going to send you flying backwards, but it's not just going to snap as you walk through it. And I saw that they, um, those webs are so strong, birds can perch on them. Like, it's not like the bird's getting caught in the web, but they can like just perch on the, on the web for a little while where they figure out where to fly next.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:53Josh Clark?

  That's a strong spider web.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  That is. Is that a good time for a break?

• 5:57Josh Clark?

  I think so.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  All right, we'll take a break and we'll be right back after I go take a quick shower.

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• 7:39Speaker 03

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• 7:59Josh Clark?

  So, one of the reasons that geri spiders are spreading so quickly is because they're very new, like you said, a little over 10 years since they were first spotted in the U.S., which means that predators haven't, I guess, spotted them yet. So, they have a ready supply of flying insects. They apparently particularly like stink bugs. And little competition for those insects, in part, I think, because they weave their web higher than other spiders that they would be competing with for food. And so ample supply of food and no predators means that any species is going to

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  just boom for a while. And that's what we're in. We're in the golden age of Jurospiders booming all over the eastern United States.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  That's right. And if you think, you know, how far north are they gonna get? Right now, and I read an article, I think from June 24, that said, West Virginia is about as far north as they've gone so far, except for a satellite population in Baltimore. So they, I guess, got on a container, went to Baltimore, and were like, this isn't so bad. I think one of the things we didn't mention, that, you know, since they're so native to Georgia especially, or not native, I guess, but invaded in Georgia first, the University of Georgia has done a lot of studying on them. And they found that, it turns out these guys can live in a lot colder weather than they previously thought they could. So

• 9:31Speaker 02

  they'll be, they'll be to you soon, New Jersey, New York, and beyond.

• 9:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So a little bit more about the actual spiders themselves and how they behave. You'll notice like, there's a couple of different webs basically right up on each other. Jurospiders live very close together. I guess they're not super territorial, if at all. And again, if you see a beautiful spider in the web, it's a female, and there's probably a male trying to get to her. And he's using all sorts of cute little tricks to, to make his way from one place to another toward his intended love target.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Oh, man, you almost said lover.

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  I would not say that. I'm so, I get so deeply disturbed by that word for some reason.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Oh, me too. I think a lot of people have that reaction. There's something, and not only that, but the phrase, take a lover, is just like, it's so gross to me.

• 10:26Josh Clark?

  Oh, my God. That and moist. And if you put them together, especially.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Oh, goodness me. You need some of that, I'll never.

• 10:33Josh Clark?

  I believe.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Studio 54 joke.

• 10:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Oh goodness, how did this get so dirty all of a sudden? All right, so they live close to each other. The males are trying to get the attention. They may float on little cobwebby type things and just be like, hey, look over here. And the reason they don't just jump up in a web and say, let's get this thing over with, is because the female will probably kill the male and eat it. So they're walking a very fine line, trying to get some attention without being eaten. So the University of Georgia professor said, you know, a lot of times, like while the female is eating something, they might just walk up and say, hey, are you enjoying that? What do you think of me?

• 11:19Josh Clark?

  They apparently also, the males will like fly, float on the air with a little bit of gossamer, like a little parachute or a hang glider from like tree to tree or branch to branch, making their way toward a web, which is pretty cute if you ask me.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  But, my friend, should people be killing these things because they're invasive?

• 11:40Josh Clark?

  No, you shouldn't. For one thing, it's not entirely clear what kind of impact they're having on the ecosystems they move into, but there's certainly no apocalyptic impacts going on.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:53Josh Clark?

  Because everything seems to be fine and the other spider populations don't seem to be shrinking as the Jurospiders move in. That's a really bizarre thing if that's true, if they're having like no weird impact. But again, they expect that they're going to start being predated on. It's harder to say than you'd think.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:12Josh Clark?

  Pretty soon, so we don't, shouldn't have much to worry about. And I hope this isn't one of those podcasts that ages like milk, you know?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  But yes, I'm hoping that all the entomologists are right where they're like, just relax, everybody, they're poisonous or they're venomous and they will bite you under certain circumstances. But if you leave them alone, or even if you walk into their web, more often than not, they're going to run away from you. So to answer your question in a very long, roundabout way, no, you should not kill them.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  No, I think they're basically saying, hey, there's plenty of stink bugs, so that's fine. It's not like they're killing off the honeybees. And if they do bite you, it'll, you know, you might get a little local reaction, but it's not the kind of venom that's going to do any kind of harm to you, really.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  No. And this article likened it to a bee sting. And I remember Yumi getting bitten by one of these. And I asked her, I was like, was it like a bee sting? She's like, no, it wasn't, wasn't nearly as bad.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:09Josh Clark?

  So I decided that wasn't a dramatic enough story. So I was gonna tell everybody that her hand blew up like a Cabbage Patch Doll.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  She got bitten by one, huh? How'd that happen?

• 13:19Josh Clark?

  She was gardening and they are all over our yard. And they got in like one of her rose bushes while she was deadheading her roses. And yeah, she got too close and it went argh. And that was that.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get you me some gardening gloves.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, she's got some, but sure, give her some more.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  She's reaching to all the hidey holes with those things on.

• 13:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. Especially those heavy duty ones.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  You got anything else?

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  I don't think so. No, I feel like we covered everything, Chuck.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  You know what that means.

• 13:56Josh Clark?

  Short stuff is app.

• 14:00Speaker 05

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