Just thought I’d share.
Ah yes. That site is a standard in the household.
Which reminds me, I was going to get a gigantic pic of a devil-fetus and make it my husband’s desktop background…
Thanks, Johnny! 
Ewwww… never actually seen one. Just how big are those things? They look gigantic in those pics but there is nothing else to reference in the pics it is hard to tell.
Nevermind. Just saw the “Actual size of adult potato bug” note next to the pic. Holy crap those things are huge!!!
Damn it! I thought it said PHOTObugs. You know, like shutterbugs?
You owe me. Johnny LarvA
;j
I’d never seen one until I moved in with my husband (who hates them with a passion). He opened the back door and one was just sitting there, looking dolefully (can insects be doleful?) up at him.
My husband, he of the 44" chest, a longstanding member of the Three Plate Club, born and raised in rough LA neighborhoods, emitted an unholy scream unlike any I have ever heard before or since, and slammed the door.
I captured the little guy and set him loose in the onion patch down the road. Since then I’ve always wanted to have a little pet potato bug, on a little leash of string.
Aww, I think they’re kind of cute!
O course I also like the hairless rats at work…
What, ‘This site is dedicated to the fabrication and perpetuation of fear, hate and
disgust for the Potato Bug. Please, won’t you join us?’ wasn’t enough warning? 
:dubious:
You know I can’t read.
AKA: Child of The Earth.
Appropriate, but very creepy.
Fear Factor’s Potato Bug Bazooka [TMI]:
http://www.nbc.com/Fear_Factor/gross/425_potato_bug_bazooka.shtml
I have an interesting potato bug story.
Apparently potato bugs exist everywhere here in Nevada. I’ve lived here twelve years and I’d never seen one until about a year ago.
We have a freezer in the garage where we keep things like frozen meats and those heat and eat microwave things. I was going to walk out to the garage (without shoes) and grab a hot pocket or something.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a SEVEN INCH LONG POTATO BUG! It was HUGE! It was like the granddaddy of all potato bugs! And it was dragging a leaf behind it, which I’ve read is a death rite among potato bugs (that could be wrong). If that’s right that means there’s a huge ass dead potato bug corpse somewhere in my parents garage.
Anyway, I saw that thing, screamed like a little girl, and ran upstairs. My boyfriend was like “WTF?” And I’m like “It’s going to GET me!”
I had NEVER SEEN ONE OF THESE THINGS IN MY LIFE. To me it looked like a slimy cross between a bee, an ant, a cockroach and a spider. It was GROSS.
I hate bugs.
~Tasha
Seven inches!? Hell, even I’m impressed and I deal with giant millipeds and three inch cockroaches every day!
Ever hear about the jerk who made a bundle during the Depression by advertising a surefire Potato Bug killer in the magazines? Two bucks, guaranted. Two bucks was a helluva lot of money then. When the poor farmer got his package, it turned out to be a couple of blocks of wood with instructions to place the bug between 'em and squish.
What a rotten thing to do.
Eastern Washington’s climate is much like that of Nevada’s. We went camping over there a couple of years ago and they were chirping like crazy in the field next to our tents at night. I made an early morning visit to the restroom and found one right in front of a stall. It was the first one I’d ever seen. It was oddly pallid and fat but it didn’t really creep me out. Maybe because it was only about an inch and a half long. I calmly did my business and left. Now that I think of it, I wish I’d taken it outside with me so the next person to see it wouldn’t freak out and kill it.
By the way, when I saw “Potato Bug” I thought was going to be about the kind of critter that is also called pill bug, roly-poly or sow bug. Reading the posts, I was wondering how anyone could be scared of them.
I think that’s a joke. The “actual size” according to that website depends on your monitor’s resolution :dubious:
I found this picture though. They’re still pretty big.
I got a potato bug in my hair one time.
Scarred for life.
Huh…Wikipedia is right. When I hear “potato bug”, I think of the second link, not the first. Actually, I’ve never seen what everyone is talking about before. Kinda cute, if you ask me.
I also thought that the second link was a potato bug.
Yeah, where I come from, we call Isopods"potato bugs".
I can happily live my entire life without meeting a ‘real’ potato bug thankyouverymuch.
GAAAHHH! I found one crawling around in my hot chocolate this morning!
At least, that’s what it felt like when I was sipping and clicked on that link.
Before today, I thought potato bugs were the cute little roly-poly things.