Joro spiders are heading up the coast
UC biologist says these garden spiders want to stay in the garden
Everyday Health turned to a University of Cincinnati biologist to learn more about an invasive spider from Asia that is showing up in more American back yards.
The Joro spider is a large, yellow orb-weaving spider from Japan that is slowly creeping across the American Southeast toward the Mid-Atlantic.
UC Professor Emeritus George Uetz. Photo/Lisa Ventre/UC
Female spiders grow to more than 3 inches in length. They build equally enormous webs spanning more than 10 feet to catch flying insects, which makes it hard for them to go unnoticed in gardens and back yards. But they are harmless and don't bite people, said George Uetz, a professor emeritus in UC's College of Arts and Sciences.
“They are very sedentary in their webs,” he told Everyday Health.
Uetz spent his career studying the fascinating behavior of spiders and other animals in his biology lab. He was named a fellow this year of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.
If disturbed, the spider freezes in place for as long as an hour.
“Approach them from a distance, observe them, and you will see they are no threat, as they stay in their web,” Uetz said.
Read the Everyday Health story.
Featured image at top: Joro spiders are showing up in more states. Photo/David Hansche
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
High Court offers protections for therapy speech
April 5, 2026
Jennifer Bard, a professor in the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law and the UC Department of Internal Medicine, spoke with journalists about the US Supreme Court ruling granting first amendment protections for speech offered during therapy sessions.
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.