State Officials and experts are already posting about the return of the Joro spider for the 1923 season. You will hopefully recall that I did a bit of nature study myself last fall, cataloging the life of the enormous Joro spider that set up housekeeping at our front door. Because I captured a few good images of this remarkable creature, I hoped readers might enjoy preping themselves for this years seige by these denizens of our gardens. They are apparently harmless to humans, though their impact on other specie is not yet well understood.
The Last Joro
28.11.2022 / JOSEPH KITCHENS / UNCATEGORIZED
Last Joro. It seems I was mistaken . Charlotte, the beautiful Joro spider we allowed to dominate our front door with its incredible web three months was not the last in our garden. An equally colorful Joro was discovered in the shrubbery beside our front walk on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The recent freeze seems not to have disrupted her residency although her web was in tatters. I plan to check on her daily. Photo by Joe Kitchens. Feel free to repost this image and I hope you will send readers to my website to read my article about Joros (longleafjournal.com).
Update (August 17, 2023).: I have been watching the Joro webs in my yard, noticing that they are sometimes complex withmultible layers (“condos” Karen calls them). Each web has about half a dozen identical and very sall spiders. By mid August (2023) one larger spider emerges and I expect the smaller spiders will all disappear, replaced possibly by the knots of webbing that suggests they have been sacrificed as food for the queen. . My hypothesis is that something has triggered the emergence of the “queen”-perhaps the spiders have become sexually differentiated. The smaller spiders are disappearing. Speculating again, their purpose has been served, the queen has been impregnated and will grow to the size you see in last year’s photo (above), I have not read or heard in said that the spiders are disrupting the natural order of things, but I wonder if they are destroying the other species of spiders. I cannot find a Garden Spider in our one-acre plot which is suggestive. I would be glad to learn that Joros counted among their favorite food Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders.
This is another view of the above speciman, taken in September 2022. Photo by author.
They are apparently not venomous, but the heart attacks they cause when we walk into one of them face first and they spread over our entire face are, in fact, harmful to humans. Just saying….
Sharon,
There are certainly things that cause us to recoil instictively -diamondback rattle snakes are at the top of my list. The Joros are not something that inspire nurturing but as my photos hopefully show, they are incredibly beautiful up close. We are mostly birders, and regular nesting site for blue birds and finches. We also follow the calls and habits of the red-shouldered hawks as they feud constantly with the crows. You will have noticed the appearance of armidillos in north Georgia-thirty years after they first crossed the Florida line! Thanks for reading! The shock that people expressed last summer of seeing an alligator in the Chattahoochee was laughable-they have been in the upper piedmont ceratinly since I was a boy and began noticing such things.
Joe