# Tell your grossest insect-related story **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 18, 2003, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856 "2003-12-18T21:53:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/61 "2003-12-23T05:25:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AnimistDragon \* > \*\*I never did find out what it was. No one else knew either. I’m just glad I haven’t seen another one since then. Ug. \*\* See Spiny orb-weaver ^^^ up there 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/62 "2003-12-23T06:22:00Z")
Had to look for a [picture of them there spiny orb-weavers.](http://www.sptimes.com/News/103101/photos/tb-spider.jpg) Neat little buggers, in a Darth Maul kind o’ way. I just remembered a townhouse I used to live in-- It was kind of a nice place in South Vancouver, and what made it nice was that all the units faced in on a park-like courtyard with lots of nice shady trees. One year those trees got infested with some horrible little worms that dangled way down from the branches on silk threads, making it impossible to get from your door out to the street without being covered in wriggling little vermin and their sticky extrusion. Of course this was right after I read Stephen King’s _The Mist_, so that coloured my experience even more. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/63 "2003-12-23T07:34:46Z")
When I was a pre-schooler, I lived in Topeka, during a locust swarm. I didn’t know it was anything unusual. Once I tripped on something and fell face-down into a SWARM OF LOCUSTS. Yecch. Three or four years later, something similar happened with me and a colony of red ants. I preferred the locusts. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/64 "2003-12-23T08:20:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Larry Mudd \* > **One year those trees got infested with some horrible little worms that dangled way down from the branches on silk threads, making it impossible to get from your door out to the street without being covered in wriggling little vermin and their sticky extrusion.** That could have been tent caterpillars. You don’t like to see these little devils in your trees, they will kill all the trees and bushes they infest. [http://footage.silvertip.net/individual/go/small\_critters/334/worms-2](http://footage.silvertip.net/individual/go/small_critters/334/worms-2) ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/65 "2003-12-23T19:13:38Z")
My personal grossest story (I’ve led a sheltered life) was the time I decided to try to make brown rice. Some of the grains were moving. It was years before I tried brown rice again. A friend found maggots in her daughter’s _ear_ once. Best they could figure was: ear infection, eardrum leaked a bit, fly happened along at just the right time and noticed that yummy goo, and decided to start a family. :eek: And the best (?) was a story I read in the Washington Post about a month ago (sorry, it’s no longer available on the web page) about a woman who visited Costa Rica and came back with 2 bug bites on one leg. 2+ months later the wounds were still giving her major problems, and she’d stumped about 3 doctors. She finally stumbled across a description of the botfly life cycle. She had 2 botfly larvae living _in her leg_ for over _2 months_. Personally, I’d probably amputate the leg myself. Where’s a barfing smiley when you need it? ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/66 "2003-12-23T19:33:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hyperelastic \* > \*\*[dooley] > You pick your nose. > [/dooley] > > Actually, so do I, come to think of it. \*\* Durned right! Us vegetarians gotta’ get that protein whenever we can! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856/67 "2003-12-24T00:11:31Z")
For my grossest insect story, see [this 3½-year-old post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=622786#post622786) about the Bathtub Drain of Squiggly Death. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-your-grossest-insect-related-story/219856.md?page=3)