Short Stuff: Joro Spiders

Summary

Summary of "Short Stuff: Joro Spiders" – Stuff You Should Know

Release Date: December 11, 2024

In the "Short Stuff: Joro Spiders" episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve into the fascinating world of Joro spiders, exploring their origins, characteristics, behaviors, and the implications of their recent spread across the United States. This detailed summary captures the essence of their discussion, incorporating notable quotes and organized into clear sections for ease of understanding.

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1. Introduction to Joro Spiders

The episode opens with Chuck Bryant sharing a personal encounter with a Joro spider:

Chuck Bryant [00:51]: "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."

Josh Clark responds, noting the increasing presence of these spiders in their homes, particularly in the Southeast United States:

Josh Clark [01:00]: "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."

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2. Origin and Invasive Spread

Joro spiders, scientifically named Nephila clavata, originate from East Asia. Their introduction to the U.S. is attributed to shipping containers and the movement of lumber, which inadvertently transport various insects and spiders:

Chuck Bryant [01:54]: "The scientific name of these beautiful, beautiful spiders are Nephila clavata, and they are from East Asia. They got over here... 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."

Georgia has become the primary hub for Joro spiders, with the species expanding northwestward into states like Tennessee and Alabama, and along the Eastern seaboard. As of June 24th, their presence extends as far north as West Virginia and Baltimore, with potential to reach New Jersey and New York:

Chuck Bryant [08:36]: "I read an article, I think, from June 24 that said West Virginia is about as far north as they've gone so far... 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."

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3. Physical Characteristics

Joro spiders are notable for their impressive size and vibrant coloration. Females are significantly larger than males and exhibit striking color patterns:

Chuck Bryant [04:18]: "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."

Additionally, they possess orange bands around their legs, enhancing their visual appeal:

Josh Clark [04:18]: "They also have orange bands like around their legs. They're just really, really pretty."

Male Joro spiders are smaller and less colorful, with drabber appearances compared to their female counterparts.

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4. Web Structure and Strength

Joro spiders are orb weavers, known for constructing large and durable webs. Their webs can span up to 10 feet in width, showcasing their engineering prowess:

Chuck Bryant [03:23]: "Their webs can be 10ft wide. The one I almost walked into the other day, like face first, was probably about 4ft wide and strung between two outdoor umbrellas... it was more like 8ft."

These webs are exceptionally strong, capable of supporting the weight of perching birds without collapsing:

Josh Clark [05:15]: "Those webs are so strong, birds can perch on them. It's not like the bird's getting caught in the web, but they can like just perch on the web for a little while while they figure out where to fly next."

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5. Behavior and Reproduction

Joro spiders exhibit intriguing behaviors, especially regarding reproduction. Females are solitary in their web-spinning activities, while males engage in elaborate courtship rituals to avoid becoming prey:

Chuck Bryant [10:04]: "The males are trying to get the attention. They may float on little cobwebby type things and just be like, hey, look over here."

Males utilize silk to "fly" or float from one web to another in hopes of reaching a female. This delicate balance helps prevent them from being consumed by the females:

Josh Clark [11:06]: "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."

Hosts humorously acknowledge the sensitive nature of discussing mating behaviors:

Josh Clark [10:00]: "I get so deeply disturbed by that word for some reason."

Chuck Bryant [10:24]: "Yeah, we need that wipe clean rubber."

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6. Impact on Ecosystems and Humans

Contrary to sensational headlines, Joro spiders are not currently causing significant disruptions to local ecosystems. Their primary diet consists of insects like stink bugs, and there is no evidence of them harming honeybee populations:

Chuck Bryant [12:08]: "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."

Furthermore, their venom, while venomous, poses minimal risk to humans, comparable to a bee sting:

Josh Clark [12:45]: "No. And this article likened it to a bee sting."

An anecdote shared by Josh illustrates the mild nature of their bites:

Josh Clark [12:55]: "Yumi got bitten by one... it wasn't like a bee sting... wasn't nearly as bad."

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7. Coexistence and Safety Tips

Hosts advise against killing Joro spiders, emphasizing their limited impact and the benefits they offer by controlling insect populations:

Josh Clark [12:29]: "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 because everything seems to be fine."

For those interacting with environments where Joro spiders are present, precautionary measures such as wearing gardening gloves are recommended to prevent bites:

Chuck Bryant [13:20]: "I'm gonna get you me some gardening gloves."

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8. Personal Experiences and Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, hosts share personal encounters with Joro spiders, highlighting both fascination and practical challenges:

Josh Clark [13:03]: "She got bitten by one, huh? How'd that happen?... she got too close and it went. And that was that."

These stories underscore the spiders' pervasive presence in domestic settings, particularly in gardens.

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9. Conclusion

Josh and Chuck conclude by reinforcing the benign nature of Joro spiders and encouraging listeners to coexist peacefully with them. They emphasize that while these spiders are a new addition to the local fauna, there is no immediate cause for concern:

Josh Clark [12:08]: "Pretty soon. So we don't. Shouldn't have much to worry about."

Their lighthearted banter and informative dialogue make the topic accessible and engaging, dispelling myths and promoting an understanding of Joro spiders' role in the ecosystem.

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Clark [01:00]: "We have them all over the house... that's why they're an invasive species here in Georgia, South Carolina, for sure."
• Chuck Bryant [03:23]: "Their webs can be 10ft wide."
• Josh Clark [05:15]: "Those webs are so strong, birds can perch on them."
• Chuck Bryant [12:08]: "If they do bite you, 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."

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This episode of Stuff You Should Know offers a comprehensive overview of Joro spiders, blending scientific insights with relatable anecdotes. Listeners gain a balanced perspective on the spiders' ecological role, behavior, and how to navigate their presence in everyday life.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

Brought to you by the Capital One Venture X card. Earn unlimited 2x miles on everything you buy and turn everyday purchases into extraordinary trips. Plus, receive premium travel benefits like access to over 1300 airport lounges and a $300 annual credit for bookings through Capital One Travel. Unlock a whole new world of travel with the Capital One Venture X Card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. SeeCapitalOne.com for details. 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 youf Should Know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are you sure?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, my brain got zapped for a second there.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Could have been two different steps, perhaps. 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, well, 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 U.S. can you believe that?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Georgia leads the way in juror spiders.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Atlanta is the hub.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

So like you said, they're from East Asia, and in Japan, they're called juro gumo. And the reason I say juro, 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 J ro. Okay, that's right. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, they're big, they're orb weavers. So they're going to weave those big beautiful webs that, I mean, their webs can be 10ft wide. The one I almost walked into the other day, like face first, was probably about 4ft 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 8ft. Wow. But if you've seen these things and you said like, oh, that's just a garden spider. We have 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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Correct.

[Josh Clark]

Have you ever run into one?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So one of the things that's characteristic of Jiro spider 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 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 while they figure out where to fly next. Wow, that's a strong spider web.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll take a break and we'll be right back after. I'd go take a quick shower. Hey everyone. We're brought to you today by the Capital One Quicksilver card. Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase everywhere. Plus there's no limit to the amount of cash back you can earn and rewards don't expire for the life of the account. It's that simple. The Capital One Quicksilver Card, what's in your wallet? Termsupplyccapital1.com for details.

[Jerry]

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[Josh Clark]

I'm thirsty. Watch.

[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Just like the number of stars in the sky, there is so much stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the reasons that juror spiders are spreading so quickly is because they're. They're very new, like you said, a little over 10 years since they were first spotted in the US 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 just boom for a while. And that's what we're in. We're in the golden age of durospiders booming all over the eastern United States.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And if you think how far north are they going to 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 did 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 they'll be to you soon, New Jersey, New York and beyond.

[Josh 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. Juror spiders 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 make his way from one place to another toward his intended love target.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man, he almost said lover.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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, it's just like, yes. It's so gross to me.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, goodness me, you need some of that eye bleach. Studio 54 joke.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we need that wipe clean rubber. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 a lot of times while the female is eating something, they might just walk up and say, hey, are you enjoying that? What do you think of me?

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh 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?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But, yes, I'm hoping that all the entomologists are right where they're like, just relax, everybody. They're. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, 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?

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna get you me some gardening gloves.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Reach into all the hidey holes with those things on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. Especially those heavy duty ones.

[Chuck Bryant]

You got anything else?

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Chuck, you know what that means.

[Josh Clark]

Short stuff is out.

[Jerry]

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