# potatobugs.com
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 31, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648 "2006-07-31T02:39:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/1 "2006-07-31T02:39:57Z")
[http://www.potatobugs.com/](http://www.potatobugs.com/)
> [@](#):
>
> This site is dedicated to the fabrication and perpetuation of fear, hate and
> disgust for the Potato Bug. Please, won’t you join us?
Just thought I’d share.
😃
---
### Author:  [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/2 "2006-07-31T02:53:27Z")
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**! 😃
---
### Author:  [@Amp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amp)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/3 "2006-07-31T03:05:21Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Amp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amp)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/4 "2006-07-31T03:07:11Z")
Nevermind. Just saw the “Actual size of adult potato bug” note next to the pic. Holy crap those things are huge!!!
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/5 "2006-07-31T03:07:24Z")
Damn it! I thought it said PHOTObugs. You know, like shutterbugs?
You owe me. **Johnny L** arv **A**
;j
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/6 "2006-07-31T03:12:57Z")
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. 😃
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### Author:  [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/7 "2006-07-31T03:17:38Z")
Aww, I think they’re kind of cute!
O course I also like the hairless rats at work…
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/8 "2006-07-31T03:17:56Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#):
>
> Damn it! I thought it said PHOTObugs. You know, like shutterbugs?
> You owe me. **Johnny L** arv **A**
> ;j
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? 😃😛
---
### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/9 "2006-07-31T03:30:45Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> 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.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/10 "2006-07-31T03:33:23Z")
AKA: _Child of The Earth._
Appropriate, but very creepy.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/11 "2006-07-31T03:35:50Z")
Fear Factor’s Potato Bug Bazooka [TMI]:
[http://www.nbc.com/Fear\_Factor/gross/425\_potato\_bug\_bazooka.shtml](http://www.nbc.com/Fear_Factor/gross/425_potato_bug_bazooka.shtml)
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### Author:  [@tashabot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tashabot)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/12 "2006-07-31T05:39:52Z")
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
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### Author:  [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/13 "2006-07-31T05:52:05Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/14 "2006-07-31T06:14:55Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/15 "2006-07-31T11:35:05Z")
> [@Amp](#):
>
> Nevermind. Just saw the “Actual size of adult potato bug” note next to the pic. Holy crap those things are huge!!!
I think that’s a joke. The “actual size” according to that website depends on your monitor’s resolution :dubious:
I found [this](http://pressebo.com/pbug2.JPG) picture though. They’re still pretty big.
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### Author:  [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/16 "2006-07-31T11:40:26Z")
I got a potato bug in my hair one time.
Scarred for life.
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### Author:  [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/17 "2006-07-31T11:53:30Z")
Huh…[Wikipedia is right](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_bug). 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.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/18 "2006-07-31T12:22:37Z")
> [@Hal Briston](#):
>
> Huh…[Wikipedia is right](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_bug). 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.
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### Author:  [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/19 "2006-07-31T12:44:12Z")
Yeah, where I come from, we call [Isopods](http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/isopod.htm)"potato bugs".
I can happily live my entire life without meeting a ‘real’ potato bug thankyouverymuch.
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### Author:  [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2006, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potatobugs-com/366648/20 "2006-07-31T13:01:40Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> [http://www.potatobugs.com/](http://www.potatobugs.com/)
>
> Just thought I’d share.
>
> 😃
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.
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