Say hello to your new arachnid neighbor, New York.
The enormous Joro spider, an invasive species from Asia, has come down to southern states — particularly Georgia and South Carolina — and is now expected to spread rapidly in Alabama, according to the Odum School of Ecology. of Georgia.
“People should try to learn to live with them,” researcher Andy Davis said in a university press release sharing new research on the scary spider.
But the question remains: how would they fare if they had to travel to colder climes – like, say, NYC?
While any snowbird would attest that northern climates in winter are enough to disperse them, Davis said these creepy creatures hold up to freezing cold “very well,” in his and Frick’s experiences. The spiders were exposed to sub-freezing temperatures for minutes at a time, about as long as they needed to find a warm place to hide.
And – compared to its arachnid cousin the golden silk spider, which wouldn’t survive a brief freeze – the Joro has nearly twice the metabolic rate and 77% higher heart rate, leading researchers to believe to its potential for northward spread.
Did we mention they can travel by air?
Indeed, insect watchers have spotted the Joro using their webs as parachutes, carrying them on the wind.
Alternatively, they’ve also been known to hitchhike, according to a research anecdote.
“The potential for these spiders to spread through people’s movements is very high,” study co-author Benjamin Frick said in an interview with Atlanta CNET affiliate WGCL. “We received a report from a UGA grad student who accidentally transported one of them to Oklahoma.”
Frick added that although the spiders are “not predators, they don’t have anything to control their population size in the new habitat, but they do have perfect conditions to propagate.”
While these monstrous spiders with their distinctive yellow stripes are venomous, the only place they’ll be a real invasion is in your nightmares, as experts say their relatively small fangs probably wouldn’t penetrate “most human skin,” Frick said. .
They are also not considered a serious threat to the local ecology – so there is no great pressure to control the Joro spider population.
So you can try to rip their web or push them away, “but they’ll just come back next year,” Davis said.
–
