Category: Spider

Last Joro

We have a tendency to take a proprietary view of things around us.  “The deer down the road are a potential nuisance, but the one that feeds on the edge of my yard is okay because it’s familiar.” “That maple by the gate is familiar as an old friend.” “Stray cats are death on toast for birds, but I’ve named the one that creeps around my hedge.”  “They can’t do that to our pledges, only we can do that to our pledges.” (Yes, Ma, that last one was a movie reference.)

As I mentioned a while back, the Joro spider – an Asian arachnid making itself at home in the Piedmont – fills up the woods in late summer, to the consternation of those who otherwise love the outdoors.  As temperatures drop in the late autumn, the multitude of spiders drops away and their haphazard webbing disintegrates.

And then there was the large female residing just outside the garage.  I’d see her every day, along with a few smaller Joros inhabiting that corner under the eaves. She was hanging out through the late summer and into the autumn.  October…November… December… the spiders on the back porch fell away.  Moths, flies, and other flying insects faded out as well.  Christmas came, and the large female under the eaves remained, after cold and hunger felled all her neighbors. Was her persistence due to being the largest spider on the south-facing side of the house, protected from the worst of the winds? Regardless, at this point she’d gone from an invasive cluttering up the garage to a dogged survivor.  Instead of glares, she earned appreciative glances as I walked by. 

The New Year dawned with a near-freezing morning.  I expected her corner to be unattended, but there she was: slowly, methodically, doggedly repairing her web with golden-tinted silk.  You go, girl.

Now it’s mid-January. Atmospheric disruption at the North Pole sent a shock of subfreezing winds our way.  The first morning after the hard freeze revealed a ragged, empty web.  Our Joro lay on the cement floor, having finally succumbed. I wouldn’t say I had an overabundance of feeling for that critter (this was a short-lived invasive, not Charlotte), but its passing received far more attention than that of any of its brethren.   

Is there a tree, a stone, an animal — any normally-anonymous thing –that you have marked with your attention? Any thing whose absence would be worthy of notice and remark? Drop a comment and let me know.

Meet the New Orb-Weaver…

This weekend I received texted photo of a spider, with the question: “Friend or Foe?”  What she meant, of course, is whether the arachnid posed a danger to her.  The picture she sent was that of a Joro spider (Trichonephila clavate). I told her it wasn’t dangerous, but in truth it requires a more complex answer. 

Fat and Happy Joro

Until recently, I could comfortably identify the big spiders around my house as either the garden or writing spider (Argiope aurantia) or the golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila clavipes).  When late-summer spider season hit and webs were being spun in every available tree and porch pillar, the usual suspects aren’t in attendance.  Instead, the Joro spider, an Asian native, has set up shop all over Athens and throughout our woods in a neighboring county. 

In the Fall of 2014, a fellow in Madison County, Georgia, sent photos of a strange spider to the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia.  This is the first record of the Joro spider in North America. They probably arrived, as so many invasives do, in packing material for goods shipped across the ocean. Since then, they have expanded their range across the Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina.  Given that the spiders lay egg sacks with hundreds of eggs (up to 1500!), it is easy to see how they overwhelm the other large orb weavers in the ecosystem.

My ecologically-aware friend was incensed.  “…are we just meant to let them naturalize, or are we supposed to be coming up with ways to get rid of them?”

Golden Silk Orb Weaver

Good question.  If one species takes over a niche from another species, that is cause for a naturalist’s concern.  Unfortunately, unless the usurper causes some economic harm, you aren’t likely to have any of the Powers That Be care enough to devote resources to it.  Not that there is likely to be a way to combat this species that doesn’t threaten all other spider species. 

No, I think we will see the Joro continue to spread and naturalize.  They will capture insects with as much efficiency as their predecessors, and their bites are just as harmless to humans. Whether the transition of arachnid power will impact the ecosystem beyond displacing some species remains to be seen. 

Links:

Spiders in Georgia: Identify the spiders you find.