An exciting weekend: https://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2023/08/young-love.html

Celebrations: https://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2023/08/an-anniversary-exhibition-and-feast-day.html

Thanks Jeff. I'll keep a lookout for them. They sound lovely--spun gold!

There's definitely a bit of elegance about them.  It's easy to see why the Japanese are fond of them.

I googled a photo. Joro spiders are huge! And very colorful.

They're similar to our native black-and-yellow garden spiders.  Big and colorful and scary-looking, but basically harmless to people and beneficial so long as they're not in your way.

So far this year, I haven't seen any big ones yet, just quarter-sized ones.  Maybe they grow rapidly during August and September; I don't know.

Sounds nasty - and a bit scary 

It's definitely disconcerting to find one crawling on you.   

Interesting, Jeff. I didn't know Joros were an invasive species.

They only first arrived in 2013, presumably on a shipping container from Japan that arrived in the port of Savannah.  They were first spotted here in Georgia, but they've already spread to neighboring states--including your own--and are expected to become a permanent feature of the whole Eastern seaboard.  If you haven't seen one in your backyard yet, it's only a matter of time until you do.

They're orb weavers, but while most orb webs are just a single plane of web, the Joro's web has a three-dimensional aspect to it.  It's like an orb web inside a separate cage of silk.  I think this unique design is something that the local insects aren't adapted to avoid very well, and I think that's why Joro webs tend to be full of captured-bug trophies.

Joro silk is yellow, and it shines like gold when direct sunlight hits it at the right angle.  It's also stronger than usual for spider silk; it takes some effort to knock the webs down with a stick.

They're fascinating creatures, and I'm perfectly fine with them hanging around so long as they don't build their webs in my way or crawl on me.

Last year, it was in August that the Joro spiders suddenly appeared from nowhere and proceeded to try to cocoon my entire home in their webs.

It's now August again, and while I've seen a few Joros, they're nowhere near as numerous as last year.  They're also not as big.  Perhaps they'll grow rapidly over the next few weeks or something.

One of them still managed to annoy me, though.  I was sitting outside, watching the hummingbirds battle and basically just enjoying the outdoors as best I could in the oppressive heat, when I suddenly felt something crawling on my elbow.  I looked, and it was a Joro spider.  I let out a yelp, frantically brushed the spider off, and leaped out of my chair as if electrocuted.

I wasn't bitten, and I'm not anachrophobic.  I don't react well, though, to being startled by a spider on my skin.  That gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I didn't kill the offender.  I relocated him.  Hopefully he'll build a new web in an out-of-my-way location and help put a dent in the local insect population.

Ordinarily, finding a spider on my skin isn't something worth mentioning.  It happens from time to time, and it's no big deal.  These Joros are different, though, because they're a non-native species that only arrived a few years ago, and it's still something of a mystery about how well they'll adapt to the region and how the native species will adapt to them.  The novelty of them is still fascinating to me.

Sounds nasty - and a bit scary