A Spider Fit for Halloween

By Tom Poland

 

Read no further if you suffer arachnophobia …

How well I remember a night when we were under the lights scrimmaging. I can’t recall who we were to play but I remember one thing clearly. We took a water break and huddled directly beneath the stadium lights. Something fell onto my neck. A teammate shouted. “Hey, a big spider just went down your shoulder pads.” That’s the night I slipped off my jersey and shoulder pads in record time.

“I don’t like spiders and snakes” goes the old Jim Stafford song. It’s a song that suits many. At book events people often ask me if I see any snakes out in the woods and waters. “Sure,” I tell them, “but what scares me most are the critters I can’t see, namely spiders.” One can be creeping up your pants leg … crawling along your shirt somewhere, and as you just read, parachuting down your back.

Another spider thing. Take an early morning walk, and you’ll walk into webs. You know you’re the first to pass that way, but it’s never a good feeling to walk into a web. On early morning walks through woods I use a stick to knock away webs hard to see.

I write of spiders not because Halloween approaches, but because of two things: one bit me two weeks ago. I have no idea what kind of spider it was nor where I was when it bit me. Never saw it, but my skin began to slough off and the bite grew into a small depression. What started out as feeling like a mosquito bite grew into a small sore on my left hand’s middle finger. A doctor confirmed it was a spider bite.

The second thing … while walking my hurricane-ravaged land back home I came across two large webs anchored by two large multicolored spiders. “Joros,” I thought, the spider making its way across the eastern side of the country. Believed to have arrived with materials imported from east Asia, they’re big and a tad scary, a spider fit for Halloween with their colors. And due to that coloration, the ones I saw are females.

You’ll notice the female joro right away. Their abdomen looks a bit like the business end of a hornet. A reddish splotch of color distinguishes it but what struck me was not the spiders, but their victims. A lot of large bugs wrapped in silk hung in their webs. They hung there like cured hams in cotton sacks.

The spider’s common name comes from the jorōgumo, a legendary spider in Japanese folklore that transforms into a beautiful, fire-breathing woman who wraps men in silk and devours them. Well, now, that’s a bit scary, and so is its Latin name. Trichonephila clavate made its entry in nearby Jackson County, Georgia. They travel by ballooning, known, too, as kiting. Releasing silk threads they catch the wind and ride into new places. Did Hurricane Helene blow them into my Georgia woods? I think not. They had to be there already.

A threat to people? Not much. Although they’re venomous, their venom is weak, comparable to a bee sting, but the big spiders are shy about biting. Even so, as with many things in the wild, leave them alone.

At this time it isn’t known just what impact these large spiders will have on the environment and native spiders, but it’s safe to say there will be an impact. As for those of you with an intense fear of spiders, be alert. Think twice before slipping on those old shoes. Watch out for webs, and dark woodsy haunts. And be alert to the joro. It’s here and here to stay. If you’ve yet to see one, well, you will.

 

Photos by Tom Poland.

Georgia native Tom Poland writes a weekly column about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and culture and speaks frequently to groups in the South. Governor Henry McMaster conferred the Order of the Palmetto upon Tom, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor, stating, “His work is exceptional to the state.” Poland’s work appears in books, magazines, journals, and newspapers throughout the South.

Visit Tom’s website at www.tompoland.net

Email him at [email protected]