Posted on 12/27/2023 1:26:38 PM PST by algore
Some spiders will die when cold weather hits, but scientists warn an invasive species from Asia may survive and continue to invade the US.
Scientists at the University of Georgia froze more than two dozen of the eight-inch-long Jorō spiders spotted on the East Coast to see if the black and yellow creatures could survive the harsh winters.
The experiment showed nearly 75 percent of the spiders were unaffected, with the rest showing some injuries.
The Jorō spider's golden web took over yards all over northern Georgia in 2021, unnerving some residents, and was soon spotted in South Carolina and other states.
But biologists and entomologists now expect the creature to expand its territory as far north as Canada and west as Washington state.
'The native range in Asia includes much of western China and the entire Korean peninsula, so the spiders are clearly well adapted to fairly cold climates,' one researcher told DailyMail.com.
University of Georgia scientists Andrew Davis and Benjamin Frick tested 27 Jorō spiders against 20 of its North American rival in the food web: the golden silk spider.
Of the 27 Jorō spiders, nearly three-quarters (74.1 percent) got through this freezing trial completely unscathed, with the remaining seven surviving, albeit with icy injuries
'Spiders were held in 50 mL falcon tubes and placed in a freezer, which we manipulated to undergo a gradual decline from above-freezing to below-freezing.'
However, only 10 of the 20 golden silk spiders managed to survive.
Four died outright, and another six faced similar partial injuries, including 'loss of leg function, abdominal ruptures (from ice crystals) and loss of orientation,' researchers found.
One explanation for the difference, the researchers said, might be that the golden silk spider (Trichonephila clavipes) first came to the southern US via the tropics.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I ****ing hate china and spiders.
Remember the Blob?
Yeah that freaked me too and even watching it in black and white
And I bet hummingbirds.
Here in SC I am ok with them as long as they don’t threaten our state bird the mosquito.
Fauci probably funded their development.
What an absolutely SCARY story! I hate spiders like Indiana Jones hated snakes!
I’m with you. I have all kinds of personal spider stories because of that incident under the road!
This one is long, but I am going to post it here, because I am absolutely certain people like you will get it completely...:) I wrote this a few years ago, but to this day, when I pull back my covers, I see that damned spider below!
****************************************************
Spiders. Why does it always have to be spiders?
Last night, as I was going to bed, I turned on the overhead light, pulled back the covers and was going arrange the pillows, when a big black stocky spider about an inch across scurried from under the covers towards the stacked pillows at the head of the bed and disappeared under them.
Now, I wasn’t making a sound, but when I saw that spider scurry and disappear to a certain unknown hideaway under my mattress, my mind was screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
See, if that spider makes it under the pillows to the edge of the mattress and disappears between it and the wall it is lost to me.
I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in that room last night if a spider that big, that had been in my bed, simply disappeared into the room.
I could have gone on a Bug Hunt, but...that late at night, with a spider that big, athletic, and experienced, I was not going to find it.
In a flash, I knew my only chance was to hope the spider was motionless under the pillows, so in desperation, as my only option, I instantly grabbed all the pillows and flung them backwards towards the center of the bed hoping to drag the spider with them and expose it.
To my astonishment, the spider did appear, but to my deep horror, it made a beeline for the edge of the mattress where it could escape to safety.
All this, from the sighting of the spider to my flinging the pillows back could not have been more than two, maybe three seconds. And here I was, seeing the spider fleeing along with any chance of my actually sleeping in the house last night.
With an audible groan, I watched the spider disappear over the edge, and knew with a terrible and absolute finality which was devoid of any second chance, that I had lost.
Then, unbelieveably, the spider reappeared, and ran directly across the mattress towards me.
Now, a normal person might think “What was under that mattress that made the spider flee back up onto the top and run directly at me?” or “What? It is attacking!”
But instead, my two thoughts were “I must eradicate that thing with predjudice!” (because I knew I would not get another chance) and “How can I kill a spider that big without squishing green, gooey spider guts all over my clean bedsheets?”
I calculated that swiping it at an oblique to lateral angle would launch it off the bed and onto the floor, where I had a chance to kill it if it were stunned or disoriented for even a second, so without even a split second of delay, I launched myself at it with my swooping cupped hand hopefully throwing it into the air against the wall, and not smearing it in a long, gooey greenish yellow streak with pieces of spider legs mixed in. Worse...smearing yellow spider guts on my hand.
In a flash, I visualized seeing the guts smeared on the heel of my hand, then with smoke streaming off into the air, the spider guts begin to eat through my flesh until it hits my fifth metacarpal, which slows the flesh melting process down temporarily. Kind of the like the Alien’s guts in the movie “Aliens” that eats through the steel deck of the spaceship.
But it didn’t and there that spider was, disoriented, but only for moment, then began stumbling madly back towards the bed to try to disappear under it. I slammed my hand to the floor in front of it, blocking its way, so at a full run, it changed direction. So I thrust my hand to the carpet in front of it, and again, it changed direction, still trying to reach the dark safety under the bed.
All the while (now it is probably only about five or six seconds since I first saw the creature) I am casting about for something-ANYTHING (except my bare hand) to crush the thing. I spied a decorative bowl next to the bed that was full of a jumble of Mah Jong tiles, so I grabbed on, and was finally able to flatten the damn thing.
Granted the innard-laden tile had to be thrown away in a secure trash receptacle along with more paper towel sections than were rationally necessary for removing the guts from the carpet, but...it was dead. I could put my head back on the pillow and sleep.
You can probably tell-I hate spiders!
We spray them as we find them so they don’t take over.
You’re in good company!
Reminds me of theJames Bond movie Dr. No, when he’s in bed with the tarantula moving in to give him a fatal bite, and he kills it with his shoe.
Sends shivers down my spine…..
LOL! I know-scenes like that in movies really get me! (I know-it’s only a movie!)
Heh, am I the only one who isn’t concerned about rats, snakes, or anything else in those knee deep crypt waters that Indiana Jones is wading through, but am totally concerned about all the cobwebs he blithely swats away???
I would have to stop and examine every single cobweb!
If they eat mosquitoes they are welcome..................
A gentle giant that eats flies, mosquitoes and stink bugs? Love them already. I volunteer on the Insect committee at my local Master Gardeners group, come to appreciate so many cool insects.
I'm just under Lake Lanier; same thing. CRAZY number of them last year, reasonable number of them this year.
I have a spider killing vacuum with a built in Zapper.
They’re pretty easy to identify.
That works great AFTER they are born, the trick is to get them BEFORE they are even created.
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