New local find!

Arachnofluff

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 19, 2022
Messages
12
Joro Spider (I think, North GA) starting to make a web across a sidewalk! I don't think I've ever seen as dramatic a spider in the wild as this one. I grabbed the anchoring lines and moved them to the nearby tree so someone didn't come along and freak out or try to kill it.
JoroSpider.jpg
 

The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
11,048
Delightful!
But this has left us, the humans, with a quandary. The biotope is in a state of flux and is adjusting. An ongoing enigma.
I've been involved in a casual survery (Entomologists at North Chiang Mai University) of Clavata for several years now and all evidence is pointing to a reduction in population in their adopted now native habitat in Asia. What factors are in play causing the reduction are purely speculation. Then at the same time their numbers are growing in an entirely alien environment as in Georgia US - well outside their native tropics.
The confusion is added to by the being discounted assumption the species was unlikely to be cosmopolitan, now apparently proven wrong. The new conclusion now being investigated is they never were a tropical species and are an invasive in most of SE Asia.
 
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Arachnofluff

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 19, 2022
Messages
12
Oh that's fascinating. Do you know of any formal or informal publications about that? I'm interested in reading more
 

Arachnofluff

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 19, 2022
Messages
12
Delightful!
But this has left us, the humans, with a quandary. The biotope is in a state of flux and is adjusting. An ongoing enigma.
I've been involved in a casual survery (Entomologists at North Chiang Mai University) of Clavata for several years now and all evidence is pointing to a reduction in population in their adopted now native habitat in Asia. What factors are in play causing the reduction are purely speculation. Then at the same time their numbers are growing in an entirely alien environment as in Georgia US - well outside their native tropics.
The confusion is added to by the being discounted assumption the species was unlikely to be cosmopolitan, now apparently proven wrong. The new conclusion now being investigated is they never were a tropical species and are an invasive in most of SE Asia.
Oh that's fascinating. Do you know of any formal or informal publications about that? I'd be interested in reading more about it
 

The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
11,048
Do you know of any formal or informal publications about that?
None that I know of but I haven't searched recently. The only entity, IMHO, that has the world wide scope to undertake an all encompassing look at this phenomenon would be Senckenberg https://www.senckenberg.de/en/ and they are, as always, up to their eyeballs in other projects.

The problem is globalism which has opened the doors wide to species becoming metropolitan which ordinarily has stayed in their normal niche environments. The DNA mapping alone is a mammoth undertaking beyond our capability at present due to the vast scope involved and the time it takes. Without DNA mapping we remain in the dark ages of similarities of traits and guesswork which the mapping has proven wrong on numerous occasions so far. Ideal example, the Isan Cobra. Identified and recognized as a unique species. DNA revealed it simply a natural adaptation of Naja Kaouthai.
 
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