Since you won’t link, I will. Unlike the insect in the OP, these guys don’t hurt humans (well, unless you’re aggressively pestering them).
If they (mantises) are big enough they may bite you. When I was a kid I picked one up after my mom telling me they won’t hurt you. It turned its head to look at me and then it bit down on the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. It hurt. Thanks mom.
I still think they’re just about the coolest bug ever.
Insects like the one in OP’s picture, but much longer than 3 inches, are common in Thailand – indeed several ended up next to our house just two days ago due to a storm. They’re often fried and eaten! The Thai word for the species (which is applied to several other species, including some chelicerates as well as insects) is also a slang word meaning “pimp.”
Among arthropods on our property I consider the one depicted in this video to be most frightening and dangerous, though there are others my wife detests more.
Tarantula hawks.
0 percent tarantula.
0 percent hawk
100 percent bad ass.
We occasionally get some huge Praying Mantises (Mantisae? Mantisases?) here in my area. I’ve never seen one act aggressively, though- they’ve always been very docile for me.
Here’s one I found on my porch a year back or so- that’s my hand holding it.
We had a swarm of those things last year. We thought they were hornets, and I even girded my loins to go out and find their nest to kill 'em… and then realized they were nesting in the ground. I did some research, and found out that they’re completely harmless.
They look scary as hell, though. And they’re not shy- it’s like they don’t think anything can hurt them.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. (Somebody had to say that, too.)
I’ve read that these are the only insects that can look over their shoulders. My son once almost picked one up, thinking it was a stick. That’s when we learned it’s also the only insect that can sneer. (Which it did after it flew off a little ways.)
That was my thought. Those descriptions of insect stings sound like things that a wine critic would say. “Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy”? “Hot and smoky, almost irreverent”? “Distinctly bitter aftertaste”? “Light, ephemeral, almost fruity”? This is clearly the work of a deeply warped man.
Ayuh, up here in Maine, we have these water beetles, nasty bugs, they’ve been known to eat small frogs as well as tadpoles, and in a thoroughly nasty way
Those “biceps” are used to latch on to the frog, they then use their rostrum (or “beak”) to inject a venom that liquified the frog, turning it into a frog slushy, then slurp out the liquified contents
And yes, the bite is painful, very painful, I’ve been bitten by a similar water insect, the “water scorpion”, while wading in our pond, it’s basically a Giant Water Beetle with anorexia (very thin and spindly)
The bite caused a strong burning sensation for a half hour or so, and the welt from the beak took about three days to go away
I’ve also been bitten by a small centipede while I was digging potatoes in my garden, the centipede was about an inch long or so, and the venom produced a similar burning sensation for about a half hour
Neither was as bad as a sting from a yellow jacket, that burned much stronger and for about an hour, the finger I was stung on (this was an unprovoked sting, I did nothing to aggravate the wasp, it just flew up to me and stung me) swelled up to twice it’s size and I could barely move it for a couple hours
The most memorable envenomation though, was a bite from a yellow garden spider, while the bite itself was essentially painless, the venom caused my right arm to have minor muscle tremors/spasms for at least 20 minutes
I love the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. It is inevitably a subjective scale, so Schmidt ran with it and had some fun with the index descriptions:
A true pain connoisseur isn’t afraid to use appropriate descriptors.
There’s a story here, I know it.
And that’s where it tops out.
Speaking of, here’s what the Hyperbole and a Half creator came up with to replace the absurd pictorial pain scale used at doctors’ offices. It conveys the essential concept much better.
Schmidt left out cow killers (velvet ants). One stung me three times on my leg. Brilliant, intense pain for hours followed by bright, cherry-red swelling for two days.
Hey, I took some intimate photos of one with her prey a few years back – click the thumbnails to enlarge.
One of the first things I saw once I stepped out of my car in Florida was a grasshopper approximately the size of a Chihuahua. It took me about a minute to convince myself it wasn’t a plastic model some kid had left in the grass. And then it moved.
- shudder *
From Wikipedia, “Adults fly at night.” I emphasize: these things can FLY. I am joining RickJay in Antarctica, where you will find me hiding under mybed surrounded by a wall of protective penguins.
Are you sure it wasn’t a locust?
Note to self: Don’t click any links in this thread. That picture of the bug in that guy’s hand almost made me shit my pants
Sheet, that ain’t nuthin, boy… if you can handle the most twisted and horrifying bugs we already have, you can handle anything. (And of course I am referring to this Satanic monstrosity)
This. ^^^
I innocently clicked on the OP’s link only to be faced with a creature that will haunt my dreams for the next six months!
I love reading everyone’s descriptions and stories, but I’ll be damned if I’m clicking on any more of these links. :eek:
Could that have been a Lubber grasshopper? They’re not Chihuahua-sized, but they’re awfully substantial.