# Why I'm never going to Japan: The five most horrifying bugs **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 19, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105 "2008-01-19T01:34:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/41 "2008-01-19T17:11:41Z")
I considered making [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Honeybee_thermal_defence01.jpg) my desktop background, but decided it would gross me out too much. Especially if I caught sight of it while watching pr0n. yes, yes, oh, uh huh, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH BEEEEES!!!, give it to me, yeah… ---
**Author:** ![enthusiastic\_ennui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e9a140/32.png) [@enthusiastic\_ennui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enthusiastic_ennui)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/42 "2008-01-19T17:47:02Z")
Thank you for that, Wisp00. I’m going to go curl up into a ball and cry for a while. Come get me when nuclear winter has taken out the insect population. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/43 "2008-01-20T00:31:13Z")
[QUOTE=Poysyn] I think I am going to suggest that for the next tourism campaign for Manitoba Kicks “Spirited Energy”'s ass 😃 [/QUOTE] I’ve been to Manitoba. I remember it well. Especially the mosquitoes. And whatever those things were, the ones that hung around in droves, looking like they were auditioning for the next giant horrible bug movie … you know the ones I mean … it’s been thirty years, and I am _still_ half expecting the damn things to track me down and kill me in my sleep. (Not that I slept much in Manitoba anyway - see previous comment regarding mosquitoes.) ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/44 "2008-01-20T01:22:02Z")
Cripes, those are some scary bugs. Now I feel stupid for freaking out about the huge cockroaches I saw in India. I think we should start looking for [friends in low places](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0901_050901_wormparasite.html)\*, to help boost our odds against all these bugs. - - Well, they appear to only target grasshoppers, but maybe they have some brothers or sisters who would be interested in the job. LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/45 "2008-01-20T02:39:16Z")
[QUOTE=Ale] Pfft… [insects should stay away from Thailand.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/asia_pac_eating_insects_in_thailand/html/1.stm) That reminds me that I`m feeling a little hungry, see ya all later. [/QUOTE] That’s true! We get our own back at them. _munch, munch, munch_ ---
**Author:** ![This\_ll\_Do](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/this_ll_do/32/3023_2.png) [@This\_ll\_Do](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_ll_Do)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/46 "2008-01-20T03:55:17Z")
Great big cockroaches are the worst. Around here we call them by their scientific name: Lizard-eaters. And hiding indoors won’t help; sometimes they can find a way [cue _Psycho_ shower-scene music] **into the house**! Maybe they can’t sting or invade flesh, but some of them almost _scared_ me to death one time in the Marquesas. I was on a sailboat with nowhere to run, already deathly ill with _mal de mer_, when they landed on deck and menaced me with their shiny wings, scary triangular heads and looong wavy antennae. I screamed, waking up half the harbor, and broke a toe trying to jump into the tender to escape. Cockroaches are dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/47 "2008-01-20T05:03:56Z")
And over here they fly. Freaks me out when they land on my head. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/48 "2008-01-20T07:34:47Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] And over here they fly. Freaks me out when they land on my head. [/QUOTE] I really need to stop opening this thread. ---
**Author:** ![T.Slothrop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3e96dc/32.png) [@T.Slothrop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.Slothrop)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/49 "2008-01-20T09:44:10Z")
“Ah, you signed up; so for you tomorrow will bring a squid and a goat at the welcome party. Welcome to the Dope.” I don’t like squid. bring two goats. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/50 "2008-01-20T10:04:13Z")
[QUOTE=T. Slothrop] I don’t like squid. bring two goats. [/QUOTE] Got it. You heard him, y’all: two squid, hold the goat! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/51 "2008-01-20T12:54:28Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] And over here they fly. Freaks me out when they land on my head. [/QUOTE] We were in a little guesthouse in Chiang Mai. My girlfriend was terrified of insects, and because of this we had moved guesthouse about four times in one week because of her perceived likelihood of the accommodation’s infestation, and I was getting peeved. She had approved this particular one because it looked clean “and I don’t like those fucking horrible cockroaches”. The first morning, I awoke before her in the morning light to find three or four of those fucking horrible cockroaches _crawling around in the bed_ and running across her sleeping form, with a couple of others flying from wall to wall. I stifled my scream and sat up, whereupon they scuttled into whatever corner they were lurking. She woke up none the wiser. Very dishonestly of me, but not wanting to move yet again, I went out and got breakfast - and a bug bomb, that I hid in my pocket. As we were leaving for the day, I pretended I’d left my wallet in the room, went back in and lit the bug bomb and left it on the floor. When we returned that afternoon, I discovered that my devious plan had failed, spectacularly. Rather than scuttling away to die, they had had a party in the middle of the floor and died during it. There were twenty or thirty huge dead roaches scattered about the room. Needless to say, we moved guesthouse for the fifth time. But the worst I documented back in 2002. If I may [quote myself] ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=2367649#post2367649](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=2367649#post2367649)): > [@](#): > > **Nasty nasty nasty** > > Singapore, '95. Sitting around in my friend’s bungalow one evening, with the front door open, drinking arrat, when this… thing flew in the door and landed on the wall. > > I’ve lived in many tropical areas, and seen many creepy crawlies - moths the size of pigeons, spiders the size of dinner plates, centipedes the size of snakes - but I have never, ever seen anything as grotesque as this. To this day I have no idea what it was. My friend, who’d been in Singapore for years, said he’d never seen anything like it. > > It looked like the bastard offspring of a locust, a cockroach and a cicada. The abdomen was the size of a baby’s fist, puke-green in colour, soft, and pulsating. It was so big that I didn’t know how it could become airborne on its small, veined, transparent wings. The head was wide, with two huge shiny green eyes, and swivelled as it clung to the wall. The tip of the abdomen was dipping onto the wall every so often and depositing a glistening egg. Every time it layed one it levered itself up on its spindly, spiked legs and spidered, undulating, up the wall. > > My girlfriend screamed to get it out of the room. Being unafraid of crawlies, I gingerly put my hand up to it, and closed my fingers around it. Its legs were very firmly adhered to the wall, and it didn’t want to let go, so I was tugging gently against its springy legs, with my hand under the abdomen, which I thought was going to burst, or the legs were going to rip off. Eventually I managed to prise the legs off, one by one, and as I got each one off the wall, it wrapped itself round my fingers. I took it out into the garden and tried to throw it down, but it was now holding onto my hand. A reasonable amount of gentle thrashing persuaded it to drop off my hand, and I retreated back into the house. We closed the insect screen. > > About 20 minutes later, my friend’s cat pawed at the screen to be let into the house. It was holding something in its mouth as it settled itself down on the living room floor and started to crunch away. I think you can guess what it was… I have since discovered, through visiting an insect museum in Malaysia, that it was [one](http://static.flickr.com/96/255181154_7d41cd8929.jpg) [of](http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/4015/morpology/katydid3.jpg) [these](http://www.thebugmaniac.be/alainimages/other%20insects/orthoptera/grasshopper%20malaysia%2019.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/52 "2008-01-20T16:50:54Z")
[QUOTE=Steve Wright] I’ve been to Manitoba. I remember it well. Especially the mosquitoes. And whatever those things were, the ones that hung around in droves, looking like they were auditioning for the next giant horrible bug movie … you know the ones I mean … it’s been thirty years, and I am _still_ half expecting the damn things to track me down and kill me in my sleep. (Not that I slept much in Manitoba anyway - see previous comment regarding mosquitoes.) [/QUOTE] Hmmm, I am not sure what huge bugs you speak of, unless you mean [Dragonflies?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly) - but they are _good_, they eat the skeeters! Friggin [Horseflies?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsefly) I will give you the mosquitoes though - I love summer but I hate those things! ---
**Author:** ![This\_ll\_Do](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/this_ll_do/32/3023_2.png) [@This\_ll\_Do](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_ll_Do)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/53 "2008-01-20T17:14:16Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] And over here they fly. Freaks me out when they land on my head. [/QUOTE] Lawdy! That’s a mental image I didn’t need. They fly here (Florida), too. Quick-- somebody post kitty pics. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/54 "2008-01-20T17:20:18Z")
[QUOTE=This’ll Do] Quick-- somebody post kitty pics. [/QUOTE] [Here you go!](http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/627651/2/istockphoto_627651_cat_playing_with_bug.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/55 "2008-01-20T17:26:53Z")
[QUOTE=Poysyn] Hmmm, I am not sure what huge bugs you speak of, unless you mean [Dragonflies?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly) - but they are _good_, they eat the skeeters! [/QUOTE] Gnats, sound like. Small individually, but huge en masse, with a freaky hive mind thing going on. Whenever I see a swarm, I’m reminded of those science fiction stories where the “organism” is really a bajillion individuals with no sentience independently. **jjimm** , you’re mean. Mostly 'cause I was going to link to a similar picture and you beat me to it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![This\_ll\_Do](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/this_ll_do/32/3023_2.png) [@This\_ll\_Do](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_ll_Do)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/56 "2008-01-20T17:29:27Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] [Here you go!](http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/627651/2/istockphoto_627651_cat_playing_with_bug.jpg) [/QUOTE] **snort** I think you’re going to hell for that. See you there . . . ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_In\_A\_Top\_Hat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f6c823/32.png) [@Cat\_In\_A\_Top\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_In_A_Top_Hat)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/57 "2008-01-20T18:04:58Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Got it. You heard him, y’all: two squid, hold the goat! 😃 [/QUOTE] [Did somebody say squid?](http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=kdNbCNz5kgE) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/58 "2008-01-20T18:56:28Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > Hmmm, I am not sure what huge bugs you speak of, unless you mean Dragonflies? - but they are good, they eat the skeeters! Afraid of dragonflies? But dragonflies are so cool! I kind of miss watching the dragonfly orgies at the Potomac. > [@Cat In A Top Hat](#): > > Did somebody say squid? So _that’s_ why everyone’s been recommending Oldboy to me! It’s the Goatse of the latter half of this decade. Well, curse you, I won’t watch it! (I didn’t watch the clip either.) ---
**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:** [January 20, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/59 "2008-01-20T22:31:40Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] This is why I live in Canada. Sure, we have blizzards. But we don’t have two inch fucking hornets that spray acid, for fuck’s sake. [/QUOTE] I live in Seattle. We have _neither_ bonecrackingly cold winters _nor_ Lovecraftian arthropods. Sure, occasionally one treads upon a forearm-sized banana slug in bare feet, but that’s the extent of the horror. And re the original list, how could they have overlooked the delightful Guinea worm? Makes the botfly look like a charming houseguest. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105/60 "2008-01-21T03:35:59Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] We were in a little guesthouse in Chiang Mai. My girlfriend was terrified of insects, and because of this we had moved guesthouse about four times in one week because of her perceived likelihood of the accommodation’s infestation, and I was getting peeved. She had approved this particular one because it looked clean “and I don’t like those fucking horrible cockroaches”. The first morning, I awoke before her in the morning light to find three or four of those fucking horrible cockroaches _crawling around in the bed_ and running across her sleeping form, with a couple of others flying from wall to wall. I stifled my scream and sat up, whereupon they scuttled into whatever corner they were lurking. She woke up none the wiser. Very dishonestly of me, but not wanting to move yet again, I went out and got breakfast - and a bug bomb, that I hid in my pocket. As we were leaving for the day, I pretended I’d left my wallet in the room, went back in and lit the bug bomb and left it on the floor. When we returned that afternoon, I discovered that my devious plan had failed, spectacularly. Rather than scuttling away to die, they had had a party in the middle of the floor and died during it. There were twenty or thirty huge dead roaches scattered about the room. Needless to say, we moved guesthouse for the fifth time. [/QUOTE] Here’s a tip from an old hand: When you’re thinking of checking into a place, and they’re showing you the room, tiptoe quietly up to the bed and then raise the mattress suddenly. If nothing moves, take the room. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-im-never-going-to-japan-the-five-most-horrifying-bugs/434105.md?page=4)