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If you live in New York City, you won’t need to be a certain red-suited Marvel superhero for your spider-sense to commence tingling.

Millions of palm-sized flying spiders, a species known as Trichonephila clavata or Joro spiders, could take over the East Coast, a new study shows.

Last September, the 3-inch, yellow-striped arachnids swarmed Georgia in millions, suggesting the same could happen elsewhere.

“People should try to learn to live with them,” lead author Andy Davis, a research scientist at the University of Georgia, said in a statement. “If they‘re literally in your way, I can see taking a web down and moving them to the side, but they‘re just going to be back next year.”

The spiders’ hatchlings disperse via web parachutes that can fly up to 100 miles, riding strands of silk along spring winds.

It’s commonly found in Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan and known as “orb weavers,” because their webs are highly symmetrical and circular. It’s name, “Joro,” comes from the Japanese spirit Jorōgumo, which disguises itself as a beautiful woman to prey on men.


  Their webs are beautifully circular and symmetrical, earning them the name “orb weavers.” Alex Sanz Their webs are beautifully circular and symmetrical, earning them the name “orb weavers.” Alex Sanz

The Joro spider snuck inside a shipping container back in 2014, invading the United States — and the population has only grown.

Last year, horrified Georgians saw the arachnids’ webs, which were as deep as 10 feet, drape power lines, overtake porches and veil mailboxes.

Researchers suggest that the Joro spiders won’t stick to traditional means of flying along with the breeze to colonize their new home. Instead, they might opt to be stowaways.

“The potential for these spiders to be spread through people‘s movements is very high,” co-author Benjamin Frick, an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia said in the statement. “Anecdotally, right before we published this study, we got a report from a grad student at UGA who had accidentally transported one of these to Oklahoma.”

While its bright yellow color and red underbelly markings are stunning to the eye, the Joro spider seems menacing both in web size and lore — but it’s deceiving. The arachnid is not strong enough to bite through the skin of humans, cats or dogs, posing no threat unless they’re allergic.

It might be the silver lining in the terrifying news, since the spiders are poised to spread across the country. Researchers compared the Joro spider to its close cousin the gold silk spider, which migrated from tropical climates to the Southern states 160 years ago, to predict the future for Joro spiders.

But the Joro spider is more resilient, with the ability to withstand cold temperatures, double the metabolic rate and a 77% higher heart rate.

“Just by looking at that, it looks like the Joros could probably survive throughout most of the Eastern Seaboard here, which is pretty sobering,” Davis said.

While it sounds terrifying, Joro spiders’ arrival could be beneficial to the Georgian ecosystem, where they could kill off mosquitos, flies and other “invasive species,” instead of destabilizing their new ecosystem.

The biggest threat it poses, then, is to be a nuisance.

“There’s really no reason to go around actively squishing them,” Frick said. “Humans are at the root of their invasion. Don’t blame the Joro spider.”

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