Invasive species experts urge scientists and the media to avoid sensationalizing Jorō spiders—and wait for science to catch up.
Seeing the spread happen in real time is a rare opportunity for researchers to study the situation as it evolves. To figure out the repercussions for native species, researchers could examine how the populations of local spiders and insects change as the number of Jorōs grows in a certain area. Coyle’s team has done some basic spider tracking, driving out from their own communities and stopping every few miles in search of Jorōs to pin down the edges of their current range.
Scott thinks the paper put out by Coyle’s team was timely. “I agree with and appreciate the call the authors made to be cautious with the message being sent about these spiders,” they say, noting that it’s too soon to even label the Jorō as “invasive.” This term is supposed to be used only for newly arrived species that cause some type of environmental or economic harm.
There is a silver lining, though, to the Jorōs’ popularity: It means the public is paying attention. Thousands of people have documented observations on, an app that helps identify local wildlife. With little funding available to study their spread—most researchers are doing so as a side project—these records provide a burgeoning data set to pull from.
Despite the uncertainty, one thing is for sure: Jorōs are here to stay. They’re self-sustaining, rapidly spreading, and don’t have any known predators. Chuang hopes that arachnologists can take advantage of Jorōs’ heightened visibility to teach the public about spiders and make them less afraid of eight-legged crawlers. “I used to have the worst arachnophobia when I was younger—the kind where you see a tarantula in a textbook and cover it up,” she says.
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