[quote]larryb wrote:
Bauer97 wrote:
Funny you should mention that. I think a big part of my fear started when I was moving a log pile when I was about 10, and happened upon a black widow.
Twice I’ve found black widows under the water supply shut-off valve cap in my front yard. Both times I was wise enough to pull the cap off by its edges, instead of by the finger-sized holes in it that I suppose are designed for that purpose. “Don’t stick your finger in a hole if you don’t know what’s in there” is a good rule to live by. My brother had another good one, “I don’t touch any bug if I don’t know what it is. It might have a stinger, or a fang, or something”.[/quote]
Black and brown widows love dark, cool, covered spots to nest. I’ve found them in dryer outlets, behind a water cooler at work, in fact a few here and there at work. Oh, and old tires left outside and even in a Coke machine where you reach for your bottle. The biggest one I’ve seen came crawling out of a tire that I flipped over. So, yeah, don’t stick your hands where you can’t see.
[quote]Rykker wrote:
Dragon fly done stepped to the wrong side of town…[/quote]
These guys are unique, in that instead of quickly wrapping up it’s prey, the Nephila repeatedly strikes at the prey in the web and bites it a few times and waits for the venom to take effect, then it drags the prey to the center of the web where it eats.
Most other web weavers will wrap their prey before they bite. The yellow garden spider (the other spider I posted) is one of the fastest wrappers known. They spin thick silk and cocoon the victim in seconds.
[quote]BIGRAGOO wrote:
Hahaha, yea the anole lizard is quite at home in the south. There are a couple of adult males that can be seen fighting one another for the sunny back corner of my house. And yes, they shit whatever they crawl on. But, they do eat the hell out of mosquitoes and other flying pests.
[/quote]
The anoles at least you can chase out of the house. The geckos race around on the walls with freaky speed, and you have to get pretty lucky to catch one or even chase it in the direction you want. Those things must have a whole different concept of time than we do.
I think I am the biggest pussy when it comes to bugs… the faster they move, the worse it is, too.
In fact, I’ve been known to shriek like a little french schoolgirl when I’m walking by pigeons and one of them really close to me fly off real suddenly. I’m always afriad they’ll hit me.
I’ve seen the attacking spiders before.
I saw a fairly small one that liked to hop (any jumping spider is the worst kind because they can get lost so easily).
Anyway, I was spraying it with one of my various household chemicals, and the fucker kept jumping AT ME while I was spraying it!
I swear, it chased me into a hallway, and then into another room across from where I saw it.
The bastard finally got soaked enough where I could get some toilet paper and squish it.
I also hate bees/wasps/hornets… I did watch an educational program about killer bees, and it said that normal bees will bump into you first as a warning before they’ll sting, and you should be fine if you walk in the opposite direction of the nest.
One of the scariest moments of my life was when I was checking telephone poles for live voltage, on my bike going from pole to pole. I was biking uphill in the middle of the country, when I see tons of crates with what looked like millions of bees.
I never biked so hard in my life, and the fucking hill was fairly steep, so I was already tired. Needless to say, I didn’t check about 8 poles on that street.
[quote]larryb wrote:
BIGRAGOO wrote:
Hahaha, yea the anole lizard is quite at home in the south. There are a couple of adult males that can be seen fighting one another for the sunny back corner of my house. And yes, they shit whatever they crawl on. But, they do eat the hell out of mosquitoes and other flying pests.
The anoles at least you can chase out of the house. The geckos race around on the walls with freaky speed, and you have to get pretty lucky to catch one or even chase it in the direction you want. Those things must have a whole different concept of time than we do.
[/quote]
Ahh, the Mediterranean gecko. Those come out at night. I think they’re really cool. They do have to be aware of the anoles, because the anoles are know to kill and/or eat them. I see the geckos on my window outside the kitchen chasing the moths that flutter about. They are also fast escapers.
[quote]SWR-1240 wrote:
I’ve seen the attacking spiders before.
I saw a fairly small one that liked to hop (any jumping spider is the worst kind because they can get lost so easily).
Anyway, I was spraying it with one of my various household chemicals, and the fucker kept jumping AT ME while I was spraying it!
I swear, it chased me into a hallway, and then into another room across from where I saw it.
The bastard finally got soaked enough where I could get some toilet paper and squish it.
I also hate bees/wasps/hornets… I did watch an educational program about killer bees, and it said that normal bees will bump into you first as a warning before they’ll sting, and you should be fine if you walk in the opposite direction of the nest.
One of the scariest moments of my life was when I was checking telephone poles for live voltage, on my bike going from pole to pole. I was biking uphill in the middle of the country, when I see tons of crates with what looked like millions of bees.
I never biked so hard in my life, and the fucking hill was fairly steep, so I was already tired. Needless to say, I didn’t check about 8 poles on that street.[/quote]
I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with bumble bees. I’ll take a honey bee sting any day over a bumble bee. They burn like fire and swell to large lumps. Not plesant.
And wasps. Running a four-wheeler through woods that isn’t really a trail will really piss of and flush out wasps. And they don’t like four-wheelers either.
I breed boas, pythons, and different types of lizards. I have about 50 large boas/pythons. I have a freezer full of rats and breed two types of roaches for my lizards. I love all this stuff.
I HATE CENTIPEDES!
When I was a kid, someone told me that centipedes could crawl into your ear at night, eat your eardrum, and even kill you. This made me sleep with my pillow over my ears for years.
[quote]LarryJr wrote:
I breed boas, pythons, and different types of lizards. I have about 50 large boas/pythons. I have a freezer full of rats and breed two types of roaches for my lizards. I love all this stuff.
I HATE CENTIPEDES!
When I was a kid, someone told me that centipedes could crawl into your ear at night, eat your eardrum, and even kill you. This made me sleep with my pillow over my ears for years.
[/quote]
Speaking of snakes, aren’t the ball python and the red tail boa the coolest? Very docile, well patterned, and fairly easy to keep with a little knowledge. But I do know a few that have albino burmese, and they are HUGE. Too big to handle now. They reside in their own large cage with plenty of limgs and such.
Speaking of snakes, aren’t the ball python and the red tail boa the coolest? Very docile, well patterned, and fairly easy to keep with a little knowledge. But I do know a few that have albino burmese, and they are HUGE. Too big to handle now. They reside in their own large cage with plenty of limgs and such.
[/quote]
Yea, red tails and ball pythons rock. Red tail females can still get to 10ft if fed heavily. I keep all my snakes smaller for breeding.
Burmese pythons are too much snake for most people. They can reach 10ft in one year if fed a lot. It’s a shame that pet shops will sell a burm to a kid knowing it will end up dead or dropped off somewhere when it gets too big.
The bird eating spiders are downright small compared to the camel spiders in Iraq. Would NOT want to cross one of those.
Oh yeah, and I’m glad to hear that my brother and I weren’t the only ones who hunted stinging insects with tennis raquets and super soakers I could take out a bumble bee at 25 yards back in the day.
[quote]buffalokilla wrote:
The bird eating spiders are downright small compared to the camel spiders in Iraq. Would NOT want to cross one of those.
Oh yeah, and I’m glad to hear that my brother and I weren’t the only ones who hunted stinging insects with tennis raquets and super soakers I could take out a bumble bee at 25 yards back in the day.
-Dan[/quote]
Yeah, but do they eat birds? I didn’t think so!
Either way, those camel spiders look fucking crazy.
[quote]BIGRAGOO wrote:
Shit, fire ants are as bad as army ants. Those suckers will swarm prey and dismantle it in minutes. Plus they nest in any type of soil and their sting is really painful. My yard is full of fire ant mounds right now.[/quote]
Yesterday, I put on a pair of shorts that were lying on the floor of my bedroom; immediately, I felt fire racing up and down my left leg.
Needless to say, the local fire ant colony had sent advance scouts to my shorts, and my left leg had a couple dozen fire ants chewing on it.
I did at least take out their nest Old Testament style – water, fire, and a mean shovel.
In the aftermath, I have a bunch of those festering blisters covering my left leg.
When I was a teenager we had centipedes like this at my house (probably 4-6 inches long) we used to put them in a pail and light them on fire. One time i was taking a shit and I threw my shirt on the floor. When I finished and reclothed I felt something underneath my shirt sitting on my shoulder.
I grabbed the ‘thing’ over the shirt, took off my shirt and threw it onto the ground. Next thing u know, one of those damn centipedes came crawling out. So I say, fuck centipedes.
Shit centipedes aren’t to bad. Not something I would feel sickly scared from, but spiders scare me so bad. I hate killing them too because I am afraid to even put my hand close to them. I also don’t want spider blood all over the carpet, wall etc.
Usually what I end up doing is throwing a magazine on it. I am afraid to pick up the magazine after, so usually there is like two magazines laying randomly on the ground in my basement.
That video creeps me out! Ugh! If I saw a centipede that big in my yard I would definitely run in the other direction.
Spiders… I’m getting used to the various species. I try to let them be if they are in the house as they do eat other insects. I kept a few alive when I was in Guam so they would kill all the ants. Although the spiders didn’t last long against the gecko’s… which do shit all over the place… so I kept them out as much as possible.
Have any of you seen the “Golden Silk Spider” that resides in Japan? It’s a pretty impressive spider which makes it’s web from tree to tree…
[quote]fade wrote:
When I was a teenager we had centipedes like this at my house (probably 4-6 inches long) we used to put them in a pail and light them on fire. One time i was taking a shit and I threw my shirt on the floor. When I finished and reclothed I felt something underneath my shirt sitting on my shoulder.
I grabbed the ‘thing’ over the shirt, took off my shirt and threw it onto the ground. Next thing u know, one of those damn centipedes came crawling out. So I say, fuck centipedes. [/quote]
So when you shit you take your clothes off? it reminds me of a seinfeld episode.
I could take out a bumble bee at 25 yards back in the day.
Ouch.