Said Andy Davis, University of Georgia research scientist, quoted in "Millions of Palm-Sized, Flying Spiders Could Invade the East Coast/A huge invasive spider that invaded Georgia from East Asia could soon take over most of the U.S. East Coast, a new study has revealed" (Scientific American).
It says that the "palm-sized Joro spider" is a "3-inch" spider, which is an annoying discrepancy, but must have to do with whether you're including the legs.
Still, that's pretty big. But with all that's going on in the world, hordes of big, flying spiders may be a welcome diversion. You can worry and express anxiety, but the thing is right here in front of you — "jet-black body... with bright yellow stripes, and... intense red markings" — and, though a classic fear (spiders!), quite harmless. The opposite of the unseen and deadly covid.
It's an antidote of an anxiety, perhaps just what we need to reset our brain.
ADDED: From the "big and small" archive here at Althouse: "Large boulder the size of a small boulder." I'm just helping any of you commenters who happen to be here at 5 in the morning and working on a comment sort of like "Large spider the size of a small spider." Do you even know what I'm talking about? As I said at the time — January 2020 — "If you ever want to get me to laugh at your jokes, just remember 'Large boulder the size of a small boulder.'"
Ah! January 2020 — just before the descent of the Great Unfunniness.
ALSO: I'm pushed back in the comments about whether palms in fact do tend to be 3 inches. I'll just post a photo of a Joro spider on a palm, where you can see the the spider body without including the legs is quite a bit smaller than the palm, but including the legs, the spider is larger:
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49 comments:
Nope, did not have "giant flying spiders" on my bingo card.
i'm Really curious, how big you think your palm is?
i'm Really curious, how big you think the average palm is?
i guess i'm really REALLY curious how big you think 3 inches is?
Your link to the Sci Am article is incorrect. Yeah, it's early.
What happens when these spiders meet murder hornets?
Why not just douche them down with raid whenever encountered?
Why do we need to accept them?
They are an invasive species. As Breitbart said in another situation "fuck them. War"
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I'm not particularly bothered by spiders. Even inside my house, I'll often ignore them so long as they stay out of the way. But a flying spider the size of my hand? That's a bit much to ask.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wiggled and wriggled and stuck in her throat and she choked to death.
Not sure where the “flying” comes from. We had a Joro spider outside the house until it got too cold out. Beautiful-looking critter, did us no harm. They kill mosquitoes and stink bugs. They are welcome back here any time.
Won’t they be taken out by the killer bees?
I'm reminded of all of the warnings from my youth about "African bees" moving up from South America.
whether you're including the legs
They generally include the legs when measuring other animals, including humans.
She don’t like spiders and snakes
And that ain’t what it takes to win her
You fool, you fool
Well we've apparently got giant flying spiders coming in from the east, oversized murder hornets coming in from the west, Guatemalans, Mexicans, and Salvadorians coming in from the south, and hockey players coming down from up north.
I'm settling in to see watch the fallout. All that's missing is Mothra and Hillary Clinton.
Will it be like kudzu only with spiders in it? Are they good to eat? fried spider strips with a side of greens? Will they come inside in the fall as regular spiders try to do? Can we train Asian murder hornets to attack?
Or - is this the voice of a non-duster? Why clean when the house just gets dirty again? And what's this about "I can see taking a web down and moving them to the side?" I see myself taking down a spider web and carrying it somewhere while the spiders run up my hands to my arms and over my face. Oh, certainly. Maybe the author has a special "carrying the spider web" song, I could learn. Something better than: Thwack, thwack, brush/Did I get it?/Whackety, thwack, smush
"i guess i'm really REALLY curious how big you think 3 inches is?"
I know it's a man thing to think 3 inches is more like 5 or 6 inches, but thanks for the question. You are right that a 3-inch palm is larger than a baby's palm. I think a man's palm is at least 4 inches. I'm measuring from the base of the fingers to the top of the wrist. My own palm, measured in that direction, is 3 1/2.
Anyway, I'm thinking the 3 inches includes the legs. And the "palm-size" is meant to say 3 inches. I'll put a photo of a Joro spider on a palm in the post.
Kevin said...
Won’t they be taken out by the killer bees?
The Killer Bees: Home Invasion - SNL
I had one of those encamped in a tall nandina several years ago. Guess it headed to the east coast to see its friends.
Spiders don't bother me, but it looks like I will be asked to kill these beautiful animals in the future with a rolled up newspaper, and that will.
Spiders are frequently measured by leg span.
A three inch body length would be the size of a large North American Tarantula or a medium Goliath Bird-Eating spider. Neither one weaves webs.
Apparently, they're Airborne. Leave those bad boys alone. If you see one, yell out, "HOW FAR?" Might need a friend. Never know.
I know it's a man thing to think 3 inches is more like 5 or 6 inches,
Heheheheheh....
We few women in the geology program I attended used to use this joke all the time about why we were so bad at judging size - because we'd been told so often that this (thumb and forefinger held apart) was eight inches.
I wasn't going to delve into the whole "female measurement thing", but I see some have, I usually lead the pack in crude comments, trying to evolve.
Horses are measured in 'Hands'. That = four inches. 15 hands in 5 feet
Light riding horses 14 to 16 hands, large riding horses 15 to 17 hands, draft horses 16-18, (talking "horse" to girls was a great ice breaker.)
Speaking of picking up girls. I was at the grandkids last weekend. Went to see 3 of them play basketball as the season is coming to a close. The are 8 to 10. As we were loading the bags getting ready to depart, the boys were around the piano noodling about. Their mom insists on piano lessons. Like most kids, they don't see the need. I asked their Dad, (our son) if the boys had any clue what a chick magnet a guy is that can sit down and plink out some popular tunes on the keyboard? Dad said he did mentioned it, but their imaginations could not grasp.
About six months after I moved into my new home I found a black widow spider that huge by the standards of the species out in my garage. At least a half inch abdomen, and looked bigger than that (though I wasn’t at all interested in picking it up and measuring it). Now that was terrifying, at least until I knocked it to the floor with a shovel, saw the red mark on its belly, and dropped a sledge hammer on it.
Anyway, I'm thinking the 3 inches includes the legs.
Yes it does. That’s the default. Now where is commentator Phidippus when we need him?
That's a good looking spider.
"We few women in the geology program I attended used to use this joke all the time about why we were so bad at judging size - because we'd been told so often that this (thumb and forefinger held apart) was eight inches."
Oh, yeah, I forgot that the joke is often told in that form: Why are *women* so bad at measurement? Because they're told this [gesture] is 12 inches.
I reversed it, giving the man the problem. Because that's what we do: make the bad thing the man thing.
Hahaha. Our banana spiders here in Florida will put paid to those small interlopers when it comes to territory disputes.
Have to agree with JPS -- if they eat stinkbugs, they are welcome.
They are about as shy as your basic garden spider. Their webs are golden, strong, and huge.
The web in my yard was supported by strands between porch and trees measuring about 12 feet.
As for "flying," think about the baby spiders in Charlotte's Web, drifting away on their little "parachutes."
The one in my yard last year; you can see the tiny male near the top of pic:
https://pungeon.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-binding-bride-is-new-to-town.html
tim in vermont said...
Spiders don't bother me, but it looks like I will be asked to kill these beautiful animals in the future with a rolled up newspaper, and that will.
You're getting off easy, Tim. When one shows up here and I'll have to sell my house...
Normal size spiders don't bother me, but giant spiders in my bedroom do. I learned that in Australia when I encountered Huntsman spiders.
Blogger JPS said...
"They kill mosquitoes and stink bugs."
Finally some good news. Biden is welcome to fly plane loads of these undocumented arachnids to Minnesota.
Blogger Temujin said...
"All that's missing is Mothra and Hillary Clinton."
Has any one here ever seen Mothra and Hillary in a room together? I'll bet not...
Almost face-sized.
I am Laslo.
“Now that was terrifying, at least until I knocked it to the floor with a shovel, saw the red mark on its belly, and dropped a sledge hammer on it.”
Goddam, Big Mike, you showed that killer who’s The Boss, lol.
Sigh.... it is impossible to conclude a non-native is no problem. We just are not smart enough to figure the end results.
Easy point: These spiders eat (duh). Something else was eating that something. Something else will be affected. Are the new spiders a perfect substitute? Doubtful.
It is all fun and games until they force Dan'l Boone out of the sky, and Marshal Dillon is battling the small giant spiders in Los Angeles.
"What happens when these spiders meet murder hornets?"
Manslaughter Spornets.
I do have a sort of creep-out feeling for spiders -- reading about Tom Thumb battling a spider just gave me the willies -- but I've managed to suppress that and find them terribly fascinating and sometimes attractive. Which this one is. It's beautiful!
I'm a catch-and-release kinda guy, even with scorpions down here in AZ.
A 2X4 is 3 1/2" wide, which is also about the size of my palms. A 3" spider would more-or-less, fill my palm. There would only be 1/4" of clearance from each edge. It would never occur to me to not include the legs when it comes to describing the size of a spider. I could see the rationale, if all spiders were proportioned like daddy-long-legs, but those seem untypical.
How are they when sautéed in a modest white wine with a little butter?
They eat mosquitoes and brown stink bugs. Can they be trained to eat murder hornets?
I saw some even bigger in Australia.
So it seems that I will now be carrying a flamethrower when I visit the East Coast...
'I know it's a man thing to think 3 inches is more like 5 or 6 inches...'
More like 8 or 9 inches but on track.
Btw, most men know linear feet if they have an average-sized shoe. My shoes are usually almost exactly a foot long.
It's oddly convenient : )
Not as cool as Hawaii's happy face spider.
I've had a phobia of spiders since my childhood. Don't know why. It's not as if there were/are deadly spiders in Vermont. They just creep me out.
Any spider in the house is unacceptable - don't care what it is. If hubby is nearby I will let him put it out, but otherwise it gets the 'Hulk Smash' treatment.
"
I'm a catch-and-release kinda guy, even with scorpions down here in AZ."
Sounds like those stupid fishing shows where they pretend to be nice by letting the fish they just spent 10 minutes fighting go. I'm no tree hugger, but if you aren't planning on eating the fish just leave him the hell alone. He isn't bothering you, don't bother him.
As to insects, they are pests and deserve no quarter. If I find fruit flies in my kitchen, I set up traps to kill them. If I find a hornet's nest in my storage room, I kill it with insecticide. One does not "live with" pests.
Not. A. Fan.
No. F/king. Way.
Snakes. Are. Even. Worse.
I think what happens with these new invasive species is that at first they have no "natural" predators, but that over the course of a few years, existing species learn that they can eat the new-fangled critters and things settle into more of a balance again. Phew!
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