Female Joro spiders are brightly-colored and its adult body can be more than an inch-long with a four-inch leg span. Male Joro spiders are brown, and grow to about a quarter of an inch.

For reference, the average length of a human female's hand is 6.8 inches – meaning these spiders' leg spans would take up ...

Called Joro spiders, these enormous arachnids have ... Depending on the spider's gender, their characteristics differ. In contrast to male spiders' smaller size, adult females can grow to the ...

While some insect populations, like monarch butterflies, are struggling due to habitat loss, parasites, and climate change, others, like the Joro spider, are adapting and thriving. Researchers at ...

This story appears in the December 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. Spiders in Focus Jumping spiders are ornamental and agile, widespread and harmless. Yet like many spiders ...