# Why are people afraid of bugs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 15, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000 "2016-07-15T20:20:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/21 "2016-07-18T22:50:58Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Probably because they crawl into your ears while you sleep and dig into your brain to lay eggs. This. 1,000,000% this. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/22 "2016-07-20T23:06:54Z")
I think there’s enough negative stigmas attached to owls to qualify them as scary. as for bugs, unlike a tiger which has the same number of features that you do (give or take a tail), bugs have six to our four limbs, and five to or meager two eyes. spiders are even more alien with eight limbs and eight eyes. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/23 "2016-07-20T23:17:48Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > I think there’s enough negative stigmas attached to owls to qualify them as scary. > > as for bugs, unlike a tiger which has the same number of features that you do (give or take a tail), bugs have six to our four limbs, and five to or meager two eyes. spiders are even more alien with eight limbs and eight eyes. And their skeleton is…is…on the OUTSIDE! yech! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/24 "2016-07-21T00:44:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **waddlingeagle** : > > People are afraid of what they have a bad experience with. Not that many people are bitten by mice. And yet, many people are afraid of mice, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/25 "2016-07-21T08:07:18Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Someone or other remarked about a century ago that the problem with insects is that “…they’re like French locomotives—all the works are on the outside.” I love this ! Am moved to give a quote expressing a thought along similar lines – comparing the same things, but in the other direction. It concerns a wilder part of Europe, than France: comes from a long-ago travel book by Jan and Cora Gordon, about their experiences in the 1920s of the then new state of Yugoslavia. They had travelled to Sarajevo by the long narrow-gauge rail route which in those days ran southward to that city, out of Croatia. They write: “The engine, a strange-looking construction… was running back along a parallel line. Topped by a fat bonneted funnel, with tiny wheels and an elaboration of complex and ingenious external machinery, it made one think of some illustration of African entomology, one of those long-legged beetles of the Congo, for it moved with a ridiculous agitation of mobile members compared with the visible motion achieved.” ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/26 "2016-07-21T13:10:29Z")
I am extremely allergic to any type of bug bite. I break out in huge itchy welts that expel yellow liquid, pus, and blood before they crust over. Of course I’m scared of bugs. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000/27 "2016-07-22T22:15:23Z")
From the bug’s viewpoint - If you had to live where there were big monsters walking around who outweighed you by about a million to one, wouldn’t you evolve a strategy to scare the hell out of the monsters? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-people-afraid-of-bugs/760000.md?page=1)