When nature grosses you out

You know how seals have those sweet brown eyes? I just found out that they look like that because seals have eyeballs as big as a fist (something about them being made to not collapse from water pressure) and you’re only seeing a tiny bit of them. For some reason (perhaps I should add it to my posts in the irrational fears thread) this creeps me out to no end. I later saw a reference to seals and was ooged out about them in general.

Others?

Maggots

There is something undeniably gross and disgusting about maggots and the way they move. They are infinitely more disguating than caterpillars (which are cute), even though their body shape and nature are the same.

Make sure not to get any bad cuts or injuries in the UK in the future:

“Last year 30,000 NHS patients had maggots applied to their wounds. A study published in the Journal of Wound Care suggested that if larvae were used more widely the annual saving could be £162 million.”

African hyenas.

Everything about them is loathesome. Their posture, the way they grin and snarl, their whooping and yickering noises. They give me the heebie-jeebies. When I watch those documentaries about the rivalry and hatred between lions and hyenas, I completely sympathize with the lions. I even cheer when the lions run down the hyenas and execute them.

Add me to the list for maggots and hyenas, and I’ll also sign up for gypsy moths. Not the moths themselves, but those horrid take-over-the-world cocoons the babies build, and the way they kill everything around them.

I see a lot of gross things where I work, but I’m pretty blase about them.

But one thing always manages to make my skin crawl, and that’s egg-carrying giant water bugs. The females lay her eggs on the back of the parenting father, who then carries them all around creation until they hatch. Just picture a giant roach-looking insect with a hundred perfectly round, perfectly ordered eggs lined up on its back. Grayish black eggs that glisten. Whenever we get one of these suckers in our nets, I die a little inside.

Tarantula hawks (and related wasps). Feeding on the still-living flesh of your paralyzed victim just seems wrong to me.

I’m against parasites in general.

I watched a great National Geographic thing during Coffee Talk this morning. It was about polar bears and their hunting habits. One of 'em caught a baby walrus and ripped it to shreds. The polar bear was covered in blood. Unsettling breakfast fare, to say the least!

Ticks, after they’ve become engorged with blood. Erghch.

And those spiders who carry their eggs in a pouch or something until they hatch - at which time it seems as if the parent had a grillion babies exploding from inside it. I get lightheaded just thinking about it.

Earwigs. Hate em hate em hate em hate em.

You should not have jaws on your ass. Bad!

I’m a naturalist and botanist. I have to say, exposing yourself to nature and learning about it sure helps not to get grossed out anymore.
I came across a dead calf in a meadow once. It had been dead for some three days and was literally alive with maggots. My only thought was: “Hmn. Efficient little buggers got here fast to do the job.”

That being said, I always get angry when I see a crocodile guarding a waterhole in the desert. All these thirsty wildebeest and zebra who want to drnk and they can’t because there’s this fat croc in the water who will kill the first one who tries. And the cron can lie in the water for months, but the zebra’s have nowhere else to go. I keep hoping the zebra’s will band together and trample the croc to death, or something.

I’ll second ticks. Hate them! Plus Lyme Ticks were named for the township in which they were discovered…not 10 miles from my home…Lyme, Connecticut.

Count me in on ticks! Engorged, horrible ticks. Inside the ear of a dog. Or at the nape of the neck of a 7 year old boy. Ew. Ew. Ew.

They’ve been using maggots for specialized would treatment in the US for years. For me, that simply adds to the “ick” factor. Gives me the shakes just thinking about it.

One word: botflies. If you don’t know what they are, look them up. I don’t want to talk about it. shudder

Oh and once I saw a plant that appeared to have lovely tiny yellow petals. Went if for a closer look and they were hundereds of little yellow insects feeding off the plant. Some kind of aphid, or related.

Got over most of my problems with insects but sometimes…

At least they aren’t laid under the back skin like a certain South American frog. I think they’re South American. There’s no way I’m going to Google it to make sure. I feel oogy every time I just think about it.

Then don’t click on this link. Mwuhahaa!

You’re an evil one, Maastricht!

:wink:

I was totally coming in here to talk some Surinam Toad. They give me the screaming meemies.

So if you had necrotizing fasciitis, I’m assuming you’d say “hells no!” to maggot treatment, even if it could save your limb? As ooked out by them as I am, I’d rather have them eating part of my leg for twenty minutes than lose the leg.