Those big scary spiderwebs around Georgia this Halloween? Um, they’re real

The Joro spider, a large arachnid native to East Asia, is frightening residents across north Georgia this year. “Nobody wants to come out of the door in the morning, walk down the steps and get a face full of spider web.” The Joro — Trichonephila clavata — is part of a group of spiders known as orb weavers for their highly organized, wheel-shaped webs. “But just don’t belong here, that’s all.” Turpin, 50, tried to set a Joro spider web on fire at her East Cobb home, but then got scared it would fall onto her. Researchers at South Carolina’s Clemson University also were more circumspect, saying in a fact sheet published online in August that they “do not yet know if there will be any negative impacts from this non-native species on the local ecology of South Carolina.” Amateur gardeners and naturalists have raised concerns about the safety of native spiders and bees and other pollinators. Rypstra has studied a similar spider species and said their webs are used by other spiders as a source of food, so the Joro might actually help native spiders.