Posted on 12/07/2023 4:32:00 PM PST by Libloather
A venomous eight-inch-long spider native to Asia, whose palm-sized females cannibalize their male mates, is flying up America's east coast and spreading out west.
Experts say the Jorō spider can fly 50 to 100 miles at a stretch, using their webbing as a parasail to glide in the wind, and it's now also hitching rides up east coast highways - but the creatures aren't known to pose a threat to humans or pets.
However, the jury is still out on the impact that this giant spider, which is believed to have first arrived in the US a decade ago via shipping containers arriving in Georgia, might have on local wildlife.
One thing that is certain, according to an ecologist at Rutgers University's Lockwood Lab in New Jersey, who spoke with DailyMail.com: 'Soon enough, possibly even next year, they should be in New Jersey and New York.'
'Because their main methods of dispersal are to either 'balloon' with the wind, or hitch rides on cars,' PhD student and ecologist José R. Ramírez-Garofalo told DailyMail.com, 'they are generally going to spread to where the wind blows, or where humans are.'
Ramírez-Garofalo, who currently conducts research for Rutgers' Lockwood Lab, added that while the Jorō spider will likely be able to take advantage of warming temperatures along the northeastern seaboard, their hitchhiking and parachuting methods are sure to take them farther than some other invasives.
'Their range expansion is more complicated than the typical northward expansion that you see with a lot of species under current climate conditions,' Ramírez-Garofalo told DailyMail.com.
'Right now, we are seeing them dispersing into Maryland,' as the ecologist recently told Staten Island Advance. 'It is a matter of when, not if.'
Last month, other ecological and entomological researchers in New York, Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina pooled...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Well, we definitely need to cancel the election now.
the Jorō spider mostly preys on flies, mosquitos and stink bugs — with the latter being not only a threat to crops, but a threat that currently enjoys free reign without natural predators in many parts of the US.
May a Russian style winter wipe their asses out. Yuck!
Quick Ban TikTok...
IF they eat stinkbugs I want one! the bane of my blackberries.
Females cannibalizing males. I see a pattern here…
Just the latest Chinese export.
“Take advantage of warming temperatures”…..
This is the reason I stopped reading “science” magaziines…no matter what the subject is, global warming is making it worse
“..parachuting through the air on the east coast-”
They’re just doing a little web browsing.
Spiders....from Mars?
What Nasty thing does not come from China?
Twerking, but, you know, what would be the point?
/sarc.
Seems to be quite common with arachnids...and hominids.
CC
Children of Time
By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
NOPE!
” methods of dispersal are to either ‘balloon’ with the wind”
So is that what was on last year’s baloons.
if I see them flyin round these parts, I reckon the buckshot loads(Snake Shot) would be best!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.