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Sticker of Joro spider
Bug card No. 0799 of 1,500

Joro spider

Trichonephila clavata
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersGardens and meadows8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Joro spider is a big, colourful spider with yellow and dark blue stripes and a splash of red. Its huge web can be several metres long, and in the sunshine the threads shine like gold. It comes from East Asia but now also lives in the United States.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and now the eastern United States, in gardens and parks
Length
0.7 to 2.5 cm (0.28 to 0.98 in)
Top speed
about 1.9 km/h (1.2 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
What does it eat?
It catches flying insects in its big golden web. In America it even eats stink bugs that other spiders leave alone.
For real!Photo of Joro spider
Picture by Christina Butler from Georgia, United States. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Joro spider about 2.5 cm long (0.98 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.9 secondsmoves 21 times its own body length every second

How big is Joro spider compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The girl is much bigger than the boy. She can be 25 millimetres long, the boy only about 10.

2

Its web has three layers: a round web in the middle and messy webs in front and behind.

3

The mother lays 400 to 1,500 eggs in one egg sack on a tree.

4

It spends the winter as an egg, and tiny baby spiders come out in spring.

5

It is named after a magical spider from old Japanese stories.

you asked

Most asked questions about Joro spider

?How big is a Joro spider?

The female's body is 17 to 25 millimetres long. The male is much smaller, 7 to 10 millimetres.

?Where do Joro spiders come from?

From East Asia: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Since about 2013 they also live in the United States.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Trichonephila clavata
Group
Spiders
Family
Araneidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
Lives on
Asia, North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Trichonephila clavata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Christina Butler from Georgia, United States. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows