Comment by 97s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 97s | Hacker News Reader

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I was one of the first people to report them spreading back almost 4(edit) years ago. One day I was taking in groceries and I noticed a golden glimmer by my front door between 3 trees I have. I took a closer look and I realized it was a massive 6-10 foot web, that had 3-4 layers of web spread between the trees. Right smack in the center of it was this beautiful 3 inch spider that was amazing looking. Right below her was this tiny male spider that was barely 1/8 her size. I immediately looked her up and spotted an article about how they came to be and to report their sightings. I emailed the UGA professor about this and he was surprised to see they had already came this far in.

Almost 4(edit) years later, when you go outside on a misty morning during the summer, you look up into the trees as you drive home and it is literally nothing but glimmering Joro spider webs. Thousands of them.

Most of them now appear in my back yard as I removed those trees, but it was crazy to see peoples faces when they walked to my front door and realized what they were walking past and freaked out at a 3 inch spider about 5 foot away from them.

edit: when I looked up the UGA professor name I realized I emailed it back in September 2018! Crazy.

I remember how fascinated I was by them when I first visited Japan. Public parks there have been full of them for a long time, it seems like they like a lot the way human gardening is arranging trees, i.e. their wide nets work perfectly there. I don‘t see the problem either - if you want less mosquitoes and flies here you have a pretty good solution.

This is how I feel. I love that they get the pest bugs. I don't mind them at all. I learn where their webs are by running into them one time and then going around them the next times.

Who was the professor if I may ask? He may have been mine! Etymology is a very niche community at UGA!

etymology from the greek ἔτυμος for "true"

entomology from the greek ἔντομον for "insect", the tom actually is the same tom in atom.

This checks out:

- "The Greek word entomon, meaning “notched,” refers to the segmented body plan of the insect."

https://www.britannica.com/science/entomology

- "Etymology : From ἐν- (en-, “in”) +‎ τόμος (tómos, “slice”)."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἔντομος#Ancient_Greek

Or in xkcd form: https://xkcd.com/1012/

Edward Hoebeke

Unless there are other giant yellow spiders with black legs and big webs native to Georgia, I'm almost certain I spotted these when jogging by my neighbor's house in North Georgia around 2007. It was terrifying looking, and it stuck with me.

It had to be around that time, because I moved shortly thereafter.

Anecdotal, but when I saw this headline I immediately thought back upon it.

Probably just a banana spider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichonephila_clavipes

Here's one from 2006 in Central Florida: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobisbob/299200141/in/datepost...

I remember seeing a large number of "yellow garden spiders" around Alabama during the 2007 timeframe. I guess they only get up to about an inch long, I remember that my teenage self thought they were much larger...

That looks spot on!

Thanks for clarifying.

There are some other yellow spiders, but nothing really compares to this one. They don't make traditional webs. They make massive ugly janky looking webs from all different directions that span across a lot of different branches. I don't think they came to be until about 3 years ago. The UGA professor says that they believe they came from a freight truck traveling up I85 as they hatched off.

The most interesting part is that they made a very strong silk that is golden and can even be collected and knitted. Ecologically is a problem. One more.

Not in GA but close enough. My guess is you saw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia

Those are the local variety. The new ones are much, much bigger.

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