Spiders from Japan could colonize the US East Coast

Great, now it’s a plague a spiders.

Joro spiders, an invasive species from Japan, could spread through most of the United States East Coast, a new report says.

The arachnids first showed up in the United States around 2013, says the report from the University of Georgia. The spiders have since become a familiar sight in the Peach State.

These birds mark themselves as one of the world’s largest flying birds inhabited on coastlines, lakes and rivers across the globe. The seabirds are famous for their unique throat pouch to catch fish and other aquatic animals. The Pelican family is believed to be at least 30 million years old.

Now the rest of the Eastern Seaboard could get caught up in their web.

The creatures, which are yellow, blue-black and red, have colonized much of Japan, University of Georgia researchers said, and a similar climate could make the Eastern U.S. spider central.

“Just by looking at that, it looks like the Joros could probably survive throughout most of the Eastern Seaboard here, which is pretty sobering,” said Andy Davis, a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology and one of the study’s authors.

But the good news, Davis said, is that the spiders don’t seem to harm local ecosystems.

“People should try to learn to live with them,” he said. “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.”