Jorōgumo

Jorōgumo (Japanese: 絡新婦 (kanji), じょろうぐも (hiragana)) is a type of yōkai, a creature of Japanese folklore. It can shapeshift into a beautiful woman, so the kanji that represent its actual meaning are 女郎蜘蛛 (lit. 'woman-spider'); the kanji which are used to write it instead, 絡新婦 (lit. 'entangling newlywed woman') have a jukujikun pronunciation that is related to the meaning, but not the sound of the word. In Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, it is depicted as a spider woman manipulating small fire-breathing spiders.

Jorōgumo can also refer to some species of spiders, such as the Nephila and Argiope spiders. Japanese-speaking entomologists use the katakana form of jorōgumo (ジョロウグモ) to refer exclusively to the spider species Trichonephila clavata, and this has been adopted into English as "Joro spider".