An invasive species, East Asian Joro spiders probably arrived in the state of Georgia, where I live, in shipping containers, according to researchers at the University of Georgia. Joros are harmless to humans but grow to be rather large and can be frightening to anyone who has never seen them before.
They’ve been here for almost 10 years, but I never saw one until the summer of 2021, and that was at my father’s house about 30 miles away. They appeared on my property this past summer, their intricate webs stretching great distances between trees.
Now that we are in the middle of Autumn and heading toward the beginning of winter, I thought the Joro spiders were gone to wherever spiders go. I was wrong. Yesterday I walked directly into the web of the largest Joro I have yet seen….
Researchers predict that Joros will eventually spread throughout the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
Unexpected in common hours 
They are so beautiful but can go back to where they came from
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I wish they would. Their webs are huge and often hard to see, so people walk into them. Ugh!
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Seems closely related to our own golden orb-web spiders – fascinating creatures even capable of catching small birds in their traps! I can vouch for the fact that walking into one of their webs is very disconcerting. You have my sympathy, Deb!
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Thank you, Dries. I just looked up your golden orb-web spiders, and they do seem to be related. We’re just not used to seeing them in this area, but I guess we’d better get used to them. They’re here to stay, it seems.
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