Remember when we said giant venomous spiders were invading New York? Well, they're actually spreading across the United States. Don't be surprised to see one pop up in your neck of the woods.
They're called Joro? spiders, and they're both pretty plump and venomous. Although, you shouldn't worry about the venom. It will likely only cause redness and slight blistering if bit. Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) published a study in the journal Physiological Entomology have been studying the giant venomous spiders for some time.
"They can live in pretty crazy places. I've seen them on top of gas station pumps, and there are cars whizzing by left and right every few seconds — that's a really kind of disturbed, stressful environment for a lot of critters. And so one thought we had going into this was, 'well, maybe the Joro? spiders just don't even get stressed,'" lead author of the research Andy Davis told CNN.
Giant Venomous Spiders Behave Uniquely
Researchers discovered one peculiar thing about the spiders. They don't run away when they get startled. Instead, they "simply stay in place." As part of their experiment, researchers carefully restrained both Joro? spiders and other spiders. Other spiders included the golden silk spider, yellow garden spider and banded garden spider
"The Joro? spiders rarely struggled once restrained, while the garden spiders put up quite a fight. I lost several of the garden spiders in the lab due to them fighting against being restrained. It was easy to find them though — I would come into the lab the next day and find large webs strung up," Christina Vu, co-author of the study, told CNN.
So basically, they're cool as a cucumber and cold as ice under pressure. That's probably a blessing and a curse. They'll be harder to find, but you're unlikely to accidentally make one mad and aggressive. The giant venomous spiders first popped up in Georgia in 2013. Since then they've slowly spread across the region. Now, they're spreading across the east coast. You can find them in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Maryland
"When you have a new invasive species like this, there's a lot of interest in how far it will spread, and what it would mean for local insects and wildlife. It doesn't help that this particular invasive species looks like something out of a horror movie," Vu told CNN.
