It’s so large, it might be mistaken for a Halloween decoration – but the web that the invasive Joro spider spotted in Boston has left outside a stately home on Beacon Hill is all too real.
Perhaps the only thing creepier than seeing the palm-sized spider itself is not seeing it, and not knowing where it is.
Beacon Hill residents have been seeing the spider for about the past week and NBC10 Boston captured video of the yellow-and-black-striped spideron Wednesday, though Liz Trovato, who lives nearby, and her kids weren't able to spot it Thursday morning as they tried to catch a glimpse of their famous new neighbor.
"When I heard about it last night, I was like freaking out," said her 9-year-old son, Sal, noting that he was freaking out in an excited way.
Another neighbor actually called it good luck — "it's much cuter than the rats and the mice we see here."
Andy Davis, a spider expert at the University of Georgia, said the Joro spider is an invasive species that’s native to East Asia. It arrived here in the U.S. in 2013, but this is the northern most sighting of it to date.
A MassWildlife spokeswoman confirmed to NBC10 Boston Thursday that the spider seen in Boston is a Joro, noting in an email, "While it is unfortunate to have any non-native species in Massachusetts, residents do not need to be alarmed."
The Joro has a reputation as a flying spider, since it's able to parachute through the air by releasing silk threads that catch in the wind, though that behavior is something done by hatchlings, like many other species' do. MassWildlife doesn't believe that's how the Joro spider seen in Boston arrived.
“It looks scary, if you’re an arachnophobe, this is the stuff of your nightmares, but ironically, it’s incredibly shy," Davis said. "It's not really harmful to people or pets. They’re not going to jump off the web and attack you, as much as people might think. They do have venom, but it’s no more potent than any other spider in your backyard.”
One other fun fact, according to Davis, is that Boston's specimen is a female spider that is essentially very pregnant, with an egg sack containing about 500 hundred eggs that it will deposit somewhere around here before it dies off this fall.
"I think that’s a little scary," Liz Trovato said upon being told her neighbor is expecting. "Hopefully they can’t crawl through windows and under doors because I don’t want any showing up in our house."
Sal added, "You better watch out for them next summer!"
