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 ...
They’re all over our area now.
They look and occupy a niche similar to our yellow garden spider.
Turn them into a delicacy and sell them at Whole Foods for $18 an ounce.
Might have some appeal to the vegetarian crowd out there.
We have had those spiders here in GA for the past 5 years. Their webs are strong and large. You have to spray them at the first site. They nest to breed and they sure like to make baby spiders.
Pffft... I’ll wait for the murder hornets.
“They’re all over our area now.”
I am just north of Alpharetta. Last year they practically covered the house. There aren’t nearly as many this year. I don’t think they like the cold in spite of what the article says.
If they come up my way, if the cold doesn’t deter them, my flamethrower will.
...my Remington pump .22 loaded with rat shot would put them to sleep......I guarantee.
“ If they come up my way, if the cold doesn’t deter them, my flamethrower will.”
Unashamed arachnophobe here. As long as they stay in their webs I don’t have much of a problem. It’s those hideous tarantulas that crawl throughout the house that scare me. Ok, they’re actually Huntsman spiders, not tarantulas, but still…
Oh, yeah. That’s me too, probably worse.
When I was seven years old, I tried to crawl through a drainage pipe that went under a road. I could see the other side, so I thought it would be neat.
I wiggled my way in, and was about 15 feet in when I suddenly noticed the pipe was getting narrower. Next thing I knew, I couldn’t budge forward, and could only wiggle slightly backward.
I was lying on leaves, twigs and junk, arms out in front of me, and turned my head to say something to my older brother who was standing outside, when I saw that a huge cobweb and got squished all over my neck and shoulder.
And stuck right in it, was a big, huge, Daddy Longlegs. Just like the one on the Johnny Quest cartoon. Staring at me, with that single (I thought) eye.
That pipe immediately became skin-tight and I began to scream and wiggle in a most horrible fashion. Somehow, my brother wiggled in behind me, grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me out.
Next thing I knew, I was running down the middle of a residential street, screaming loudly, jumping in the air and twirling in a way that would have made a professional figure skater jealous, all the while beating my head and shoulders madly.
Every single time I glanced back, like a dog with tin cans tied to its tail, that Daddy Longlegs was still there...bouncing around, just within my field of view.
My brother got it off me, and even though I do not remember how I knew, I somehow found out that damned Daddy Longlegs was a corpse stuck in the web. It was one of my most frightening childhood experiences.
To this day, I harbor an irrational fear when I feel or see one on my body. I cannot kill them...they ARE interesting, and I find them fascinating, but...they still bring out some kind of primal fear in my gut, if even for a fleeting fraction of a second if one is on me.
Another time, I was driving onto a highway at night, and...a little itty bitty spider begins to lower itself from the ceiling of my car...right...in front of my nose.
So here I am, driving up an on-ramp to one of the busiest and most dangerous sections of highway in the country at rush hour (Massachusetts Route 128 between Lexington and Burlington) doing about 45 mph, at night, and just at the point I am merging with traffic all doing bumper to bumper at 80 mph in the right lane!) I am completely fixated on this spider about three inches from the front of my face...inching slowly down towards my crotch.
I cannot take my eyes off of it for a second to look at the road. Just as I was coming to grips with the situation, doesn’t the damn thing just DROP and disappear into my lap.
I damn near wrecked my car. But I always wondered how my face looked to the spider...kind of fisheye distorted, bug eyed and crosseyed, with a great gaping black mouth slowly opening to reveal a waving uvula at the back of my throat as I yelled.
And all this isn’t because I am squeamish...I lived in the Philippines, and they had dang near every variety of bizzare huge beetle with enormous mandibles like Tiger Beetles, Rhinocerous Beetles, and the prized and rare, Ox Beetles. They had lizards, geckos, snakes, monkeys, boars, monitor lizards and God knows what else...but it was only the spiders that freaked me out.
BTW...I DO know Daddy Longlegs aren’t really spiders, and I DO know they are completely beneficial and harmless, but...still scary to me.
When was the earliest documentation of this spider anywhere, not just the United States?
We had a large golden orb spider spin a big web between a holly tree and our dining room window. It was so pretty that we left it alone.
Shotgun size?
I’m still waiting for the killer bees. Saw the movie in the 70s and thought we were all going to die
China’s 100-year unrestricted war against the United States rages on!
Tin foil conspiracy nut, looking for a home! High five!
LMAO!
Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!
Just another reason to be glad I’m in the interior of Alaska! Freeze baby freeze!
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