2024, animals, Nature, News, Uncategorized

Japanese Invasion

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Header photo by By SolitaryThrush at the English Wikipedia,

I was always rather surprised that my best friend, a sturdy farm girl, has always been afraid of spiders, especially Daddy Long Legs, which I understand aren’t really spiders. I kind of like spiders, except for the ones that can bite and kill you (Brown Recluses). I think there are a lot of them in Iowa, for some reason.

I don’t know how Friend is feeling about the recent news that 4 inch, flying, venomous, Japanese spiders have established themselves in Georgia, and are set to invade New York State this summer. They are predicted to spread all across the country. They “fly” by some ballooning maneuver. At least they don’t have real wings.

My third cousin Tom, who Krista knows, loves creepy crawlies and turtles and frogs and breeds fox snakes and is a semiprofessional naturalist. He seems both alarmed and excited at the prospect of these spiders invading Minnesota. I don’t know how they will deal with northern cold, or with the wind we had on Wednesday, with gusts up to 53 mph all day. I remember how upset people at home were about army worms invading from the west when I was in grade school, covering the sidewalks and devouring crops. These seem somewhat worse.

What is your favorite/least favorite insect? Tell some good bug stories.

45 thoughts on “Japanese Invasion”

      1. I did a very early run to Dunkin. I had a hard time deciding which place to grace with my presence, but In the YA wanted donut holes and Dunkin Is the best for those.

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  2. I tell myself to love all creatures. There is a reason for their presence here – some niche in the ecosystem – the web of life will be forever altered without them. Easier said than done.

    Centipedes seem to serve no purpose whatsoever except to get into our basements and freak me completely out. I’m really pretty tolerant of critters. I will put spiders outside rather than smashing them with a shoe. I have caught bats in buckets with a piece of cardboard over the top and released them. I smash centipedes with anything I can grab quickly.

    Honestly, they hiss. I’ve turned on a light in a basement room I used to have and found them hissing and wrestling – I’m not kidding about this. They are so quick. As soon as the light is on, they scurry under something. All of those legs work in their favor. They are a nightmare.

    This new spider doesn’t freak me out too much. I don’t like the “ballooning” thing because I don’t want to be walking outdoors and have one land on me, but that’s unlikely.

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    2. I should say that I really like butterflies, moths, and dragon and damsel flies.

      There is a new invasive exotic species of actual “bug” (biologists differentiate between “bugs” and “insects”) called a brown marmorated stink bug. We are supposed to eliminate them (by squishing). They’re about 1/2” to 3/4” long, brown, with an armored-looking body. They stink when squished. I have more than my share of these.

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  3. OT: Clyde – I replied to your Murphy comment yesterday, but in case you didn’t see it, I’m sure you know about Vine Faith in Action. Their number is 507-387-1666. They may be able to help with transportation to go see Sandy.

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  4. I think cockroaches may be my least favorite – they arrived in a “new” stove the manager brought to our apartment bldg. We started seeing a few, then more and more, and one day we opened up the side panel and there were swarms of cockroaches… Yikes! Luckily it didn’t take him long to replace the stove.

    I suppose my favorite insect at the moment is the bumblebee. My sister came home from kindergarten with a little song that went (wish you could hear the tune):

    I’m bringin’ home a baby bumblebee

    Won’t my mommy be so proud of me

    I’m bringin’ home a baby bumblebee

    Itsy bitsy teeny weeny baby bumblebee

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons, From JacAnon,

    I remember the invasion of Army Worms that Renee mentions in the second paragraph. We lived only about 60-70 miles apart so both homes would have experienced this. It was disgusting. Those worms were everywhere and they ate everything in sight, becoming gorged. In our garage hundreds of them would crawl up the walls and onto the garage ceiling, then fall off and explode when they hit the floor. We went barefoot all summer. Stepping on the worms felt icky. Renee, do you know what year this was?

    In 2005 I was sculpting my niece for a little figurine of her as the High School Drum Major that I gave her for high school graduation. With polymer clay you use a blender to condition the clay before sculpting. I had a pale skin color clay in the blender to reproduce her face and hands. She is a redhead with pale skin and freckles. We had an invasion of the Asian lady bug-like beetles. There was one in my art studio. It flew into the blender spout while I was conditioning the clay where it was ground up. The bug pieces replicated her freckles so I used it. She still has the figurine.

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    1. It was during the early 1970’s, before 1975, as by that time we had moved to an acreage outside of Luverne, and the army worms invaded when we still lived in town.

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  8. My favorite bug story is THEM! It’s the giant ants in LA movie. The Incredible Shrinking Man has a good scene with the little man fighting off a spider with a straight pin. The old giant insect movies were enjoyable

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  9. Is a mosquito considered a bug? Mosquitoes don’t bother me much, they rarely have. But they love YA. Last weekend after we cut the grass and did some yardwork, she made a fire in the fire pit and we sat outside for a couple of hours. When we came in, she realized she had seven or eight mosquito bites all over her body. I had zippo. She is part of the cadre of people who believe that the world would be better off without mosquitoes and that bats could find other things to eat.

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  10. Back in 1973, while riding motorcycles at night through the countryside, I shouted at the rider next to me, mouth wide open.

    A very large insect splatted on my back molars. He was delicious. Reminded me of a grape-flavored Twizzler.

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        1. Ants, chocolate covered or not, are said to be tasty. Honeypot ants (Myrmecocystus) are supposed to be the tastiest, but most have a hint of something citruslike.”

          Insects are a daily food staple in some countries, probably out of necessity, but some think entomophagy (bug eating) of selected microlivestock could be the coming thing in developed countries.

          I’ve eaten snails, which I loved, and chicken feet, which didn’t have much taste but were super crunchy, so why not bugs?

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      1. There’s this lady who posts videos of her pet jumping spiders, with voiceovers and cute skits. It’s given me a different take on spiders, for no constructive reason to be sure, but there it is.

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  11. I am decidedly not a fan of anything with more than 4 limbs. However, honeybees are sacred to one of my deities and mead is profoundly sacred in both of the traditions I follow, so I have come to love bees as much as I love corvids.

    –Crow Girl

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  13. A few years ago, Robin was bitten on the foot by something in the garden. She assumed it was a ground wasp or something but within a couple of days inflammation was creeping up her ankle. We went to the clinic and the doctor theorized it must have been a brown recluse because it was on the brink of necrotizing. She was prescribed some potent antibiotics. Since then, Robin has been, understandably, wary of any and all spiders.

    I don’t tell her when I rescue them from the bathtub.

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    1. I have been told by entomologists that there are no brown recluse spiders in MN. They swear up and down on it even though there are lots of sightings and incidents like Robin’s.

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  14. Least favorite beetle these days – the red lily leaf beetle. Last year they stripped all the foliage off my lilies. I didn’t know about them until I noticed the extensive damage.

    This year I’ve seen only three or four adults, but know that I know what to look for, I’m scraping the larvae off the leaves.

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  16. OT For those following my heart mellow drama: my heart surgeon walked into my surgery prep room this morning before relocating the lower wire of my pacemaker, and I said to him very pleasantly, “ It’s nice to see you again.” He looked very sheepish. He said I am one of the 4 in 100 he tries not to have. It took him 5 tries to get it right. The device nurse said this time all is perfect. I am home on my own doing fine. But my one-armed one week now starts today and I have a new sell by date written ion my chest. They are rethinking the three months of no driving because my blackout may have been caused by the faulty lower lead. I can’t drive for seven days anyway and they will let me know.

    Thanks, Krista. I do know about Vine. I did volunteer driving for them for more than 3 years. But there are limits on how much they will do. Joyce comes back Tuesday and we will talk.

    Clyde

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  17. When I read the first newspaper articles about the threat of the spreading venomous, Japanese spider, I was alarmed. Another damn thing to worry about. That’s when I decided to do a little “research” to determine how much of a threat this spider actually is. Here’s what I’ve discovered:

    The spider is indeed invasive, i.e., not indigenous to the US. That said, it was first reported in Georgia in 2014, and from there it has spread to most of the surrounding states.

    The Joro spider, as it’s called, is an orb weaver. The female is much larger and brighter in its coloring than the male, which is usually the case with arachnids. And while it’s true that it is venomous, it’s also true that it is shy, non-aggressive, and poses no threat to humans or their pets. Its fangs are so small that it has trouble penetrating human skin, and the venom itself is weak and requires no medical intervention. It feeds on insects such as wasps and butterflies, but will eat just about anything that gets caught in it web.

    I’m going to cross the Joro spider off my list of things to worry about.

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