General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFlorida Gots Them Palmetto Bugs.
Other places gots them cockroaches.
In California, people gots these:
Jerusalem Crickets or as some call 'em "Potato Bugs."
They's bigguns. Some up to 3" long, with they beady eyes and they sharp jaws, like.
In Mexico, they gots 'em too. There, they call them Niñas de la Tierra (Children of the Earth).
The first time my wife, recently moved from Minnesota to California, saw one, she screamed and I came running. I picked it up, put it on the palm of my hand and let her have a good look at it while I told her all about it. After that, they resumed their wanderings in the house without causing alarm. The cats liked to bat them around, but never bit one after the first time. Those orange and black stripes say, "I taste terrible. Leave me alone, please."
They can bite, and have a pretty good pinch, but otherwise they're harmless. They eat decaying vegetation and harm nothing.
Cirque du So-What
(26,026 posts)but I gave these suckers a wide berth when I encountered them.
Usually found near decaying wood & forest vegetation, these so-called 'cow killers' would raise my hackles just from the coloration alone.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)We had some of those in California, too. Several species with different colors. "Velvet Ants" is the generic name for them. All sting, so children soon learn to leave the pretty bugs alone.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)the Tarantula Hawk is enormous and has a very, very nasty sting:
Cirque du So-What
(26,026 posts)Brave handler.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)You find Tarantula Hawks in desert and dry areas, where the tarantulas are. They prey on the big spiders. Occasionally, you'll find several of those large wasps around a milkweed plant. I don't know why. They're not aggressive toward humans, so you can get close and study them. They won't sting unless you physically bother them though.
Cirque du So-What
(26,026 posts)The 'cicada killer' is a solitary wasp that builds underground nests. It usually doesn't bother people, but one apparently liked the smell of my underarm deodorant and lit on my shirt over my armpit. Not knowing it was there, I lowered my arm and ZAPPO! Instant excruciating pain that took me to the ground, followed by intense swelling that ran in a broad streak down my side. Made me wonder how the cicada doesn't die immediately.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)It looked like a giant hornet and I moved on to another place real quick-like.
Cirque du So-What
(26,026 posts)As it was, the sting was a complete surprise. My arm instintively flew up after the sting, and that's when I saw the poisonous bastage, who flew away quite leisurely. If I weren't temporarily incapacitated with pain, I woulda tried to smash the MFer.
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)and found one of those in my house. Glad I didn't get stung trying to kill it.
frogmarch
(12,161 posts)from Wiki:
I hope Nebraska doesn't have those critters!
hatrack
(59,602 posts)He's a biologist and wanted to create a (necessarily subjective) pain scale.
Talking about scientific dedication!
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/why-you-dont-want-to-get-stung-by-a-tarantula-hawk/
frogmarch
(12,161 posts)I'm going to save it, and I am thinking of buying the book. Fascinating stuff!
Thanks!
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Man, those things hurt!
SCantiGOP
(13,875 posts)I read the first one that bites excretes a chemical that the others smell and immediately bite also. The encounters I have had always result in 5-15 bites.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I react badly to any insect bite, so I swell up like a balloon. Grrr.
SCantiGOP
(13,875 posts)I knew a girl years ago that got about 30 bites squatting in some bushes to pee at an outdoor music festival. She was in serious trouble when an ambulance got to her.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)We called them Cow Ants or like you, cow killers.
hatrack
(59,602 posts)More like an electric shock than a sting. Just . . . damn.
Won't make that mistake again.
Watchfoxheadexplodes
(3,496 posts)A creepy toy.
Palmetto bugs same as a cockroach right? We get them climbing on pine trees one got in once. Kittens chased it around until it hissed at them they all ran lol
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)in the cockroach family. Some species from other continents are amazingly large.
Here's a biggun from Australia:
SCantiGOP
(13,875 posts)But South Carolina is the Palmetto State, named after the palm tree.
Years ago I was in Key West and wearing a shirt I got in a golf tournament that had "Palmetto Power" written on it. A bartender asked me what it meant, and I said that SC was the Palmetto State. His response was, "Jesus, they named your state after a cockroach?"
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)I'm talking actual creepy crawlies and not those trump things.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Thy never bothered me, but one friend was terrified of them. Harmless bugs lol.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)I never saw them as a child. As an adult, I've handled many, though:
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Some species can be up to 24" long:
Here's a smaller North American species:
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I consider them good luck.
Cirque du So-What
(26,026 posts)I found their eyes intriguing - gave the appearance of following your gaze.
Snackshack
(2,541 posts)Very cool life form IMO. I have always liked watching them when I find one. I saw a video on YouTube once of a Mantis sitting on the edge of a Humming Bird feeder...it actually grabbed one as it came into feed.
LeftInTX
(25,743 posts)And they weren't a numerous as roaches.
I'll take them over palmetto bugs any day!!!
nolabear
(42,002 posts)Palmetto bugs make me run in circles and scream. I grew up with the bastids and the sons o bitches fly right into your hair and kamikaze under your feet just so they can laugh at the sound of your shriek as they crunch.
I hates em. I dont mind any other bug. They are the evil demon spawn of the insect world.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I used to torture her with sightings lol!
ismnotwasm
(42,023 posts)Is most bugs are less...intimidating. There are a few exceptions of course
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)I love banana slugs!
ismnotwasm
(42,023 posts)They dont have many skittering legs or pinchers!
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)ismnotwasm
(42,023 posts)My grandmother used to drown them with a beer trap
brewens
(13,653 posts)I guess he must have ran out of licking toads.
Moostache
(9,897 posts)For me that is a mark of a well-made film or character...when details of the presentation form strong associations in the mind, you know you have a well-written or presented character!
MFM008
(19,833 posts)Of the Outter Limits about the escaping "prisoners "of Zanti ..?
They looked like those bugs.....
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)They're certainly spooky looking.
Here's a clip - Not the same bugs, though:
SCantiGOP
(13,875 posts)The Zantis from Outer Limits, which was a scarier and much less refined version of Twilight Zone.
My older brother and I laughed like crazy because they had human faces, but I was actually pretty scared. Probably about 10 year old, which would have been early 1960s.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Anything anyone has seen. I'm always amazed by that.
Laffy Kat
(16,391 posts)I think something's crawling up my leg!!!!!
HAB911
(8,945 posts)MineralMan
(146,350 posts)I've never seen one, although I've seen pictures. I'm rarely in Florida, though.
Thanks!
handmade34
(22,759 posts)ran into a lot of these when working in Louisiana... largest in the US
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Found it: Eastern Lubber Grasshopper
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/lubber.htm
Demovictory9
(32,491 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)brewens
(13,653 posts)20 years ago. I've never seen anything like it. They didn't seem to eat everything they could have, but if you had some shrub they really liked, good luck! Those things swarm like locusts.
I hiked into the Wenaha Rive in southeastern Oregon one time with a buddy. we get to some prime fly fishing water and there is a grasshopper infestation going on. You couldn't even get close to the stream (it's really a big creek) without scaring a bunch of grasshoppers into the water and you could see the trout taking them!
I said hell with trying to match that, even though I had what was supposed to be a hopper fly. I'm no fly fishing expert. I just rigged a bare hook on my leader and picked a hopper off a weed every time I needed one and we slayed the trout!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket
JenniferJuniper
(4,516 posts)2naSalit
(86,915 posts)when I was new to southern California, I was at a Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house. She was out in the country back then, and I remember going into a dark bedroom to close a window and I stepped on something that sounded solid in a shag rug. I thought I had dropped something so I reached down to pick it up and found a glob of some wet, disgusting ooze... I had squashed one of them things. I did not have dinner that night. 't'sall I'm gonna say.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)2naSalit
(86,915 posts)It was heckofaway to discover a new to me species. I have since found them live in gardens, even in southern Idaho. I'll never forget that first encounter every time I see one, though. Some bad memories just never fade.
ecstatic
(32,782 posts)I can't handle any interaction with any type of bug, alive or dead.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)One evening many years ago my wife and I were lying in bed in the back of the house. It was a very quiet evening, and we were both drifting off to sleep when we heard a faint...crunching...noise coming from somewhere in the kitchen. We finally got up to investigate after lying there for a bit speculating about what might be making a crunching noise in the kitchen loud enough to be heard back in the bedroom... .
I flipped on the light, and we could see that something was chewing a hole in the sheetrock from within the wall cavity just above the baseboard on one of the kitchen walls. We watched as it expanded the hole from the size of a dime to about the size of a silver dollar. At that point we could see clearly that it was a tater bug. My wife (a nurse) handed me a pair of hemostat clamps, and I dragged the little cruncher out from his/her hideaway and chucked it out the side door.
Never did determine how it got into the wall cavity, but it was obvious how it intended to get out.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)We were forever finding them in our house. I'd just pick them up and put them outside. Eventually, even my Midwestern wife would just do the same. You'd be watching TV, and one would be sleepwalking across the floor. What could you do but put them back outside? Harmless critters.
retread
(3,765 posts)MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Demovictory9
(32,491 posts)worst bugs to look at EVER!!
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)handled them. Handled gently, they are calm.
Poiuyt
(18,133 posts)I've never seen one before in my life. This year, they're all over the place. These are the only critters that bother my wife.
mitch96
(13,942 posts)they are resilient buggers.. When I first moved to Florida I was shocked at their size and
THEY FLY!! Yankee roaches don't fly..
I spy one walking across the floor and take a newly acquired flip flop and give it a whack... Lift up the FF and there it is.. Pops back up on it's legs and just keeps on walking across the floor like nothing happened.. Lesson learned..
USE A HEAVY SHOE.. and keep whacking until all the juice runs out.. there is a lot of juice..
yuck...
m
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)I am deathly afraid of them. I would rather come across a snake than any type of roach.
These are kind of cute in comparison.
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)Far too cute a name for those aweful flying cockroaches. I was unaware of them until I moved to Florida. I think first time I found one (in the house, natch) I all but needed sedation. Nothing like putting on your shoe and having a roach in it.
Soon after I moved there, a man came to do a regular pest control spraying in the apartment. I asked him about these disturbing creatures, and he said in the most dead pan voice, right out of a horror film "those come from outside."
In short, palmetto bugs are at the top of my list of reasons I have no interest in ever setting foot in Florida again.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)They terrify me and totally creep me out. I am so glad I live in an area where I rarely see any.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)even though spiders dont bug me and Im not fazed by snakes or other scary animals, Jerusalem crickets flip the Freak Out switch in my brain. No idea why.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)They're exceedingly weird-looking. I've met many people who just can't stand the look of them. For some reason, they don't bother me at all. But, I'm a bit weird, myself.