Arizona: Home is where the heat is.

[Alkiera]

I remember having Rhinocerous beetles at the summer camp I went to in the middle of Louisiana.  They were great fun to play with, and tease girls with.

Alkiera

[Ironwood]

Lets open it up to countries!

 

Man, I don't have anything that even approaches any of those stories.

Thank Fuck for That.

(Though the Highland Haggis is a terrifying wee creature.)

[NowhereMan]

Living in the UK I also don't have any kind of horrifying animal story. The most poisonous insect in the UK is the Daddy Long-Legs and God didn't see fit to give it any way of actually delivering its poison, so its not much of a threat.

However after taking a Gap year in Vietnam I've learned never to complain about any kind of creepy-crawlies to Australians, it almost always results in, "That's nothing, you should see the spiders/snakes/pre-historic venomous dinosaurs we've got in Australia."

I did meet one guy who survived being bitten by a redback spider. He was in a swimming pool that the thing had fallen into when he was quite  young and the only reason he survived was the the spider uses gravity to get the poison into its victim. Obviously this didn't work so well underwater and upside down so he escaped with two fairly large puncture wounds on his foot.

[Signe]

Haggis aren't so bad if you learn to stay on the side with the short legs.  It's the East London Wideboy Geezer that scares me the most.

Seems to me that the only bug problem in the UK are the ants.   They're everywhere and almost nothing seems to work against them.  They drive me mad!

Edit:  oops, sorry.  They drive me mad, yo!

[Ironwood]

They're the ones with that lovely mating call ?  "Heeey, ya fackin caaaannntt."

Ahh, London wildlife.

[pants]

Being an Australian - this is indeed where I pull out the my-creepy-crawlies-will-kick-your-creepy-crawlies-arse argument.

My personal favourite, is the Sydney Funnel Web spider, arguably the most poisonous spider in the world, lives in a 100 kilometre radius of Sydney, and best of all, during mating season the males will come inside and are aggressive.  Little fuckers will jump and go for you.

If you want to go for a swim north of about Brisbane during summer (when its hot n stuff), no good, or you could die from the box jellyfish which will give you a fatal sting from its tentacles.

Or if you play in the rockpools near the beach, the pretty looking blue ringed octopus which is quite small and as the name implies, has pretty blue rings.  It also has a deadly bite.

Ironically sharks arent a very big concern - theyre getting hunted too badly people are starting to talk about preservation schemes for them.

Snakes also arent nearly as scary - we have something like 5 out of the top 10 deadly snakes in the world, but snakes are scardy cats, and so its not too hard to scare em off, or just plain not see em in the first place.  Just keep the dog away from em.

At least our insects are relatively benign - worst we have are mosquitoes passing a painful fever.

Its all fun n games down here.

[MrHat]

The one on the bottom is eating the one on the top.

Camping in Saudi.  *shudder*  Boyscizzouts 4 life yo!

[Teleku]

AHHHH!  AHHHH! AHHHH! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Signe]

Look what you've done to poor Teleku.

I don't care what the truth is, I refuse to believe those are real bugs.  I'm leaving this thread now and I don't think I'll be back.

[TheWalrus]

  I'VE SEEN THOSE! I don't know what the hell they are, but when I was in Kuwait, those goddamn things come out of the sand at night and THEY WILL CHASE YOU! Especially if you run! I managed to get one back into its lil hole in the sand and I plunged my field knife into it about 15 times. Then I had to dig it up to make sure it was dead. \shiver

[Trippy]

  I'VE SEEN THOSE! I don't know what the hell they are, but when I was in Kuwait, those goddamn things come out of the sand at night and THEY WILL CHASE YOU! Especially if you run! I managed to get one back into its lil hole in the sand and I plunged my field knife into it about 15 times. Then I had to dig it up to make sure it was dead. \shiver

How big are those things? The perspective and cropping is kind of screwy in that pic so it's hard to tell the size. They could be as "little" as a human fist or as large as a human thigh from that angle.

[Roac]

How big are those things? The perspective and cropping is kind of screwy in that pic so it's hard to tell the size. They could be as "little" as a human fist or as large as a human thigh from that angle.

Camel Spiders, a few inches (up to 4 or 5) across.  They aren't poisonous and technically aren't spiders, though are arachnid.  Close enough for me though.  They (and that picture in particular) were part of internet urban rumor a few years ago about the horrors our troops were suffering.

[Merusk]

How big are those things? The perspective and cropping is kind of screwy in that pic so it's hard to tell the size. They could be as "little" as a human fist or as large as a human thigh from that angle.

The palm of the guy holding them is in the upper right. He's using some kind of clamps, which you can see holding onto the legs of the spider at the top center of the picture.   Sooo, still to big for comfort.

[schild]

Any bug that takes more than half a bite to eat is too big for comfort. I learned that when one of my old cats through up half a bug while about to eat the other half.

Those spiders. Way too fucking big. Way too fucking ugly. But thankfully, they are somewhere, god willing, I will never, ever, ever be.

[Ironwood]

Insert Stupid Ass Comment About The Draft Here.

[ClydeJr]

If you want to go for a swim north of about Brisbane during summer (when its hot n stuff), no good, or you could die from the box jellyfish which will give you a fatal sting from its tentacles.

Venom

You have virtually no chance of surviving the venomous sting, unless treated immediately. The pain is so excruciating and overwhelming that you would most likely go into shock and drown before reaching the shore. So don't go swimming alone! Be sure to know the first aid procedures.

In other words, you get stung, you're crab food.

Last December, my wife brought a flower box that was hanging on our balcony inside so she could water it. She set it in tub, watered it, and left it for a while. When she came back, the tub was crawling with about 30 of these suckers:

They're not dangerous (unless you're a tomato plant) but just creepy looking as hell. They were hibernating in the flower box over the winter and when she watered it, they woke up. The wife was quite creeped out about the whole thing.

[voodoolily]

Thems the babys! Weird damn animals. I call them animals because they're huge. Huge like giant rhinocerous beetle huge.

Insects are animals.

[Pococurante]

... the only reason he survived was the the spider uses gravity to get the poison into its victim. Obviously this didn't work so well underwater and upside down so he escaped with two fairly large puncture wounds on his foot.

It might have been a male.

[Ookii]

The one on the bottom is eating the one on the top.

Camping in Saudi.  *shudder*  Boyscizzouts 4 life yo!

As previously noted, I FUCKING HATE SPIDERS, but I also am sadly interested in them so I did a quick google on those 'camel spiders'.  Basically all of interest that I found is that the photograph depicted above is a study in perspective, those things look big as can be at first glance, but if you put them into perspective with the sleeve of the guy holding them, they become much smaller (which for me is a good thing).

I can now check off giant spiders on my list of things to worry about, that is until about August around here.

[Roac]

Those spiders. Way too fucking big. Way too fucking ugly. But thankfully, they are somewhere, god willing, I will never, ever, ever be.

They exist in North America as well, from Mexico up to the border with Canada, with concetrations in arid regions.  Or at least their close relatives (Order solifugae) do.

[Bunk]

Fucking Christ, this thread made my skin crawl. I don't think I'm coming back because I know someone is going to repost that damn spider pick on every page.

Have I ever mentioned that I love living in the Pacific Northwest? Hmm, lets see, what bad things do we have here?

Coyotes? yep, lots in my old neighbourhood. My dogs out weighed em by about 5x, so no worries. Kinda cute.
Spiders? Yick. None poisonous though, biggest being our wolf spiders, find em in woodpiles - about an inch across.
Snakes? Garters - harmless and cute. Some rattlers in the interior - never seen one. I like snakes.

No scorpions, or crazy flesh melting spiders, or poisonous newts or frogs, or baby snakes that can kill 20 grown men. No tornados, no locusts, no tsunamis, no big sharks, no flood plains, and we consider a 4.5 a major earthquake.

I love where I live.

[MrHat]

Ookii, perspective be damned, the one I saw was bigger than my feet.

[Pococurante]

No scorpions, or crazy flesh melting spiders, or poisonous newts or frogs, or baby snakes that can kill 20 grown men. No tornados, no locusts, no tsunamis, no big sharks, no flood plains, and we consider a 4.5 a major earthquake.

[Roac]

No scorpions, or crazy flesh melting spiders, or poisonous newts or frogs, or baby snakes that can kill 20 grown men.

Solifugae are found in the Pacific Northwest.  Here is a picture of one from eastern Washington.  It's also home to various species of rattlesnake (depending on exactly where you are), which live in every state in the continental US except Maine and Delaware.  

Sleep tight :)

[Bunk]

Never seen a scorpion. I live in Vancouver, which is a port city, so we are a good four hour drive from the desert (which is also where the rattlers are).

Unlike in Australia, most people survive getting bit by a snake up here.

And oh yes, good old Mount St. Helens. Blew up on my birthday, 1980. We felt it as a mild tremor. Too far to ever be a real threat.

[WayAbvPar]

no big sharks

I think this qualifies...

There are probably big sharks, but the water is fucking cold to spend much time in, so no one sees them =)

[Pococurante]

"Candygram..."

[kaid]

Thankfully Wisconsin has little truly nasty critters. I think in the far south western part of the state you can get some rattlers but they are super rare. As for nasty bugs I think the worst we have is probably the brown recluse spider which won't kill ya but it will probably make you wish it had.

Well I guess I should mention the most vicious creature that kills more humans every year in our state than anything else.

The evil nasty white tailed deer. Yup we have so many of the buggers more folks buy it when they run into them on the highway than any creepy crawly. The big problem is there are lots of them and mother deer will sometimes try to "lure" the nasty predatory cars away by freaking jumping right infront of them to protect their fawns.

I have never run into a deer myself but we had a deer jump and bounce off the side of our car once. We were most of the way past it when it freaking just jumped at the car and bounced off the side. I doubt it got hurt as it shot off into the woods fast enough and didn't damage the car but damn that freaked me out.

Its also kind of errie at night in late summer early fall driving down the road at night and just seeing the roads lined with glowing eyes of deer waiting to make you crash your car.

kaid

[ClydeJr]

They exist in North America as well, from Mexico up to the border with Canada, with concetrations in arid regions.  Or at least their close relatives (Order solifugae) do.

A whole website dedicated to the cute things. In particular, the families Ammotrechidae and Eremobatidae live in the U.S. southwest, including Arizona.

[Ookii]

Ookii, perspective be damned, the one I saw was bigger than my feet.

Can't you just let me live in my fantasy world of denial?

If the threat of quick highly aggressive foot long spiders ever becomes a concern of mine, I'm buying a gun and getting a concealed weapons permit.

EDIT:

A whole website dedicated to the cute things. In particular, the families Ammotrechidae and Eremobatidae live in the U.S. southwest, including Arizona.

Did I mention I hate all you people.

Scratch the gun idea, I'm just going to hire some Mexican kid to get rid of any bugs that come near me, I mean the border is only four hours away.

[Shockeye]

I'm buying a gun and getting a concealed weapons permit.

Very easy to do in AZ. Plus you can take your gun almost anywhere.

[TheWalrus]

More spidery goodness!

Thems the babys! Weird damn animals. I call them animals because they're huge. Huge like giant rhinocerous beetle huge.

Insects are animals.

Gosh, thanks for clarifying. And yet, we still use the term insect to describe some spindly thing that we throw massive amounts of chemicals on to kill. Being picky for pickys sake...whoop dee do.

[SuperPopTart]

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with mississippi bugs but let me extend a small picture of what waddles it's way around here..



and

[voodoolily]

Gosh, thanks for clarifying. And yet, we still use the term insect to describe some spindly thing that we throw massive amounts of chemicals on to kill. Being picky for pickys sake...whoop dee do.

Aw, don't be such a grumpy pinniped.  I wasn't being picky. Some people actually don't think that arthropods are animals. I very rarely get to have my underoos in a bunch over something I actually know anything about.

[voodoolily]

This is my hand, placed near the garden spider for scale. Pretty thing. I thought it was dead, 'cuz it was sitting perfectly still, and I thought, "Sweet! I can take it home and add it to my collection!" But then it started moving. Oh, boo. I have a collection of mounted insects from around the world. And one tarantula.



And ftr: I have relatively large hands for a woman. My span is 8" (pinky to thumb)