This was in the middle of a drought and all manner of wee beasties were getting in to the house for water. I had left a pair of cut-off jeans on the floor and when I went to pull them up, STING! Ouch; did I snag a leg hair on a rivet? NO! STING! STING! STING! SHIT! Off come the jeans, screaming for the wife, who brandishes a baseball bat and starts pummeling the cut-offs (think: churning butter motions). Turn 'em inside out, there’s a brown-ish blotch with claw, claw, tail sticking out. I called the emergency room, told them the story and when the laughing subsided, they said southeast scorps were not poisonous (venomous?) and I should get a tetanus shot. More laffs at the Dr’s. next day, it had stung me on the glute. Started channeling H. Simpson: A bee bit my bottom, now my bottom’s big!
ETA: I never thought this 'til just now: maybe it clawed me instead of stinging. Whaddya think?
Did you find a mark? Generally, I’d think a scorpion would sting if bothered. Only, the poision of that particular species evidently isn’t very potent to humans.
There were a couple of small red bumps. It seemed bothered, considering it was inside my cut-offs with me, and all. But now, you all have me thinking I was clawed instead of stung; it might not have had enough room to rear back and let fly with the tail. Still, no fun.
Scorpions use their pincers to hold and manipulate their prey while they sting it. Prey is primarily insects, and the stinger must be inserted between the chitinous plates that make up and armor the body of insects. Thus some dexterity and control is helpful. Your butt probably didn’t look like prey to the scorpion, so it may have unleashed all available defensive weaponry to ward it off. In other words, you may have been both pinched *and *stung.
I golfed in South Florida for about five years. Didn’t see any alligators on the course. In fact, I’ve never run into a stray alligator in 40 years living here. Yeah, they are out - there are news reports every few years of having to relocate one. But they certainly don’t seem to make themselves known around me.
And I live on a (small) lake.
I did see a few turtles at the golf course. I hit a ball into the shallow edge of a water trap once…I found it because a turtle camped out next to it staring it down.
Weird. I’ve golfed in Central Florida…well, never, but I did take some lessons, and there were always gators somewhere on the golf course.
We’ve lived in Brevard County off and on for the last 10 years, and gators are a very common sight. The piece of advice I was given when we first moved down there was to just go ahead and assume that any body of water larger than a swimming pool has at least one alligator in it. Doesn’t mean you have to completely avoid the water, just keep your eyes peeled and be common-sensical about things.
There are a lot more gators in Brevard than Orange and Seminole because the Space Center is a large breeding area (or, more accurately, the large wildlife preserve that makes up the bulk of the Space Center.)
Meh. The odds of being killed by an alligator are negligible, though they’re infinitely higher in Florida than anywhere else. That’s 13 deaths (1 outside Florida) in seven years (I assume it hasn’t been updated since 2007). By way of comparison, 20 people have been killed by lightning is the US this year alone, including six in Florida.
To the OP: Yes, the bugs are that ubiquitous. I would say all apartment complexes have a pest control contract – the bug guys should be showing up once a month. It’s the best you can do. It’s buggy here and doesn’t get cold enough to kill everything off.
“Giant” is a bit of a misnomer. They get up to about 6" across, so they’re not like coconut crab rivals or anything. I assume KRC’s roommate was from the Keys.
No, these are land crabs Cardisoma, not blue crabs Callinectes. They reach at least 6" across the carapace. Leg tip to leg tip can be more than three times that. At spawning time huge numbers of individuals march to the sea, crossing roads, interfering with automobile traffic, and flattening tires by accidental punctures. As recently as the 1960’s these marches involved tens of thousands of crabs walking right through populated areas in Miami and it’s outskirts as well as elsewhere all over the southern coastal parts of the peninsula. At night there would be an unbroken sea of arthropod shells and appendages scuttling across fields, roadways and open spaces everywhere within half a dozen miles of salt water.
But now, you all have me thinking I was clawed instead of stung; it might not have had enough room to rear back and let fly with the tail. Still, no fun.
