The Jorō Spider

A spider native to east Asia has recently (within the last 5 years or so) spread over North Georgia, where I live. An orbweaver, the Jorō spider builds its massive golden-hued webs between trees at the edges of forest and all over my yard. 

The Jorō spider is an invasive species. It is believed that they arrived in Georgia in cargo and escaped around I-85 in Jackson County, just a 30 minute drive from Athens, where I am typing these words. 

The spider itself is beautiful. Its web, too, is beautiful. There is another spider native to Georgia called the basilica spider, named for its dome-shaped webs, which are quite messy. The Jorō spider's web is also messy, featuring several layers of strong web that when touched feels as strong as fishing line. The web shines gold in the sunlight, giving the whole scene an unearthly quality. In my opinion, the Jorō's web evokes the spiritual nature tied to a word like "basilica" more aptly than does that of the basilica spider itself. These webs, plus the large spider's striking yellow and black contrasted with the pinkish red of its spinnerette, make it no surprise that this spider has inspired folklore. If folklore or cryptozoology interest you, I recommend you click these words and read on. It's ok if you click and read now. I'll wait.

Welcome back. Recently, while the school where I teach had its field day, which was a make up for the lack of field day in the spring when we were all sent home on March 13th to quarantine at the onset of America's Covid-19 outbreak, I spotted a Jorō's web near the edge of some trees. I called my students over to teach them about the spider. Another teacher chimed in, "Those are an invasive species. We sprayed about 20 of 'em yesterday." I nodded. "We're seeing a whole lot less of our writing spiders because they're taking over." I had also noticed fewer writing spiders (or argiope aurantia), which are native to Georgia and similar in size and appearance to the Jorō. The writing spiders web is less impressive to me, though respectable nonetheless. 

In my opinion, killing the Jorō spider is a lost cause. They're well-established and will continue to spread. You can kick at the wind, but you will never stop it. Ironically, this spider-killing teacher does not often wear a mask while in the building, which has been proven to stop the spread of one thing or another, but I digress.

I don't know why I'm writing this, but if, for some reason, you are reading this and it is far into the future, I hope you are doing ok. I hope there are not currently any pandemics. I hope our collectively anxiety and fear resolve themselves peacefully. I hope the Jorō spider's ecological impact does not outweigh its inherent beauty. I hope no one judges me for highlighting previous uses of Jorō yellow, which I did accidentally while trying to paste the word. I hope formatting errors are acceptable where you are. Perhaps, it won't even show up when I publish this blog post. I hope the weather is nice. I hope we managed to halt our climate crisis or at very least our bodies learn to evolve into the chaos that we've created. I hope you imagined Kevin Costner in Water World when you read the previous sentence. If you didn't, you are now. I hope you are also imagining Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, specifically the scene where he is nude, climbing across some rocks after bathing beneath a waterfall. I hope you are able to bathe under a waterfall someday. That sounds peaceful and nice. I hope on your way to the waterfall you do not walk through a Jorō spider's web and become entangled in its thick, gold grasp. I hope that if you become entangled that the Jorō spider doesn't end up biting you. I've read that their bite hurts.