Dec 16 2008
Scared yet? Bugs
I will occasionally be ripping off my old site over at http://scaredyet.net. I still love the old articles, but my domain registration expires next year, and I don’t feel theneed to spend another 20 bucks to keep it around, since I am not using it for anything. This is the first of but many, enjoy 
Insects:
They’re all around you…..
Scientific definition of a bug: Insects with sucking mouthparts and forewings thickened and leathery at the base;
usually show incomplete metamorphosis
The more common use of the word, however, generally refers to any arthropod,
or more to the point, any small animal with more than 4 legs, and usually
flies around, or hides in unpleasant places. Bugs are often thought of as ugly,
disgusting little disease spreaders that are literally everywhere.The scary truth is, this estimation isn’t too far off the mark. Bugs, in
the general sense, cover all kinds of creepy-crawlies, from insects to arachnids,
some crustaceans (pill bugs, for instance. My niece used to call lobsters bugs),
even slugs and snails (which are mollusks), and myriopods (centipedes and millipedes).
Bugs have a nasty habit of getting into places we don’t want them to. Small size
does have it’s advantages. There isn’t a basement on earth that doesn’t house at least a few spiders. Ants
inhabit most yards (and some houses), as do termites. Cockroaches are found
in all urbanized areas. Swamps swarm with mosquitoes. Forests have black-flies and
horse-flies. Even ponds and creeks host whirligig beetles and water scorpions (one
of the scientific “bugs”, not an arachnid).
Where do you go to escape bugs? Nowhere. Sorry. Pretty much every environment on
Earth is going to have some sort of little creature living on it. Antarctica has
mites that live on exposed rock. If you consider crustaceans bugs (and why not?),
there are these happy fellows living on the ocean floor, called marine isopods.
They can be over a foot long. Imagine lifting a rock and finding a foot long rolly-polly.
I bet you wouldn’t start pestering it so it would roll into a ball, would you?Okay, we like some bugs. Butterflies are pretty. So are fire-flies. Even some
beetles are pretty. But not most bugs. Say “bug”, and most people will conjure
up mental pictures of flies and maggots, spiders, scorpions, roaches,
locusts and ant-swarms. Stories from Australia make our skin crawl, describing
large spiders that can bite through boots and kill you.
Is this reputation undeserved? Well, maybe the reaction that many people have
that bugs are “out to get them” are blown way out of proportion, but not all
bugs are our friends. There is the flesh burrowing bug(the human botfly), Sydney
Funnel-web, mosquitoes, tsetse flies, scorpions, centipedes,
wasps, and any number of other creatures that will either A.) Parasatise you
or B.) React to ANYTHING you do as a threat and attack in “self defense”.
Is it at all comforting to hear “He is more afraid of you than you are of him” when
a spider is running around on the floor? No, of course not. (people like that
should have bugs poured down their shirt. Just tell them the bugs are more afraid
of them…..)
Not all of these things need to even be harmful to be scary. The Goliath Beetle
from South America can weigh in at over a pound. The sun spider (not really a spider.
They are actually called “solifugids”) isn’t even slightly harmful to humans,
but are so damn ugly, they give people nightmares. And what about earthworms?
Not even arthropods (they are annelids), earthworms eat DIRT. Not people,
but dirt. They cant hurt you, they are just a tube made out of worm meat,
but they scare the hell out of some people. Appearance goes a long way, I guess.Let’s take a look as to why these guys scare people so bad:
Appearance.
Many bugs are ugly, or look threatening. I know people who don’t like spiders
because they are afraid that they want to eat them. Logically, they know this
isn’t the case, and is impossible, but the appearance of the spider makes
them feel like they are in danger. Bees, wasps, and other large insects
cause the same reaction. ( I once saw a horse fly that was close to 2 inches long.
It was so big, I could see it’s sides heave as it breathed. I had visions of
it draining me to a pale husk, even though I know that cant happen)
They are sneaky.
Bugs show up in the most unpleasant places. Ants and roaches can live in the walls.
Spiders live on ceilings and doorways. Wasps will build a nest rightabove
your front door. Scorpions will hide in your shoe (if you happen to live in an area
with a high population). God help you if you leave food out for too long. There
are few things less pleasant than finding maggots in old food.
They can hurt you.
Fear of death isn’t the only reason people hate animals. The simple fear of being
hurt, or discomforted by something is often enough to create a full-on phobia.
Most of us do not have to fear dying of anaphylactic shock because of a bee sting.
But stings hurt, bad. The human botfly does not cause lethal wounds, but
their larva do burrow into your flesh and eat small pieces of it. Most people don’t even think about the possibility of contracting a
disease from a mosquito (Americans, anyway), but they will assault you mercilessly
en masse, and cover you with itchy bites.
They can be dangerous.
Okay, so some bugs CAN cause you grievous bodily harm. Several species of spider
are horribly venomous. Flies and mosquitoes spread terrible diseases, as do
fleas and ticks. Some insects form swarms, which can devastate entire regions,
either by destroying crops (in the case of locusts), or everything, like
ant swarms. And then, some people are allergic to stings, going to anaphylactic
shock if stung, suffocating to death. Killer bees attack in such large numbers, they can cause this reaction in healthy,
non-allergic people. Fire ants cause horrible welts wherever they bite, and
have caused deaths. If the legend is to be believed, Charles Darwin died from
an assassin bug bite. (Don’t let the name fool you, assassin bugs, again
a “true” bug, is not normally harmful to humans. According to the stories of
Darwin’s death, the bite became infected).Here is a list of “bugs” to give you the willies. Everything here is as factual
as I can muster. I will not knowingly mislead you on any of these.
Bullet Ant:
These guys grow to be over an inch long, and get their name from stories that
their sting feels like a gunshot wound. I found this site: http://www.sasionline.org/antsfiles/pages/bullet/bulletbio.html
Which describes them in great detail. They have a display of bullet ants at their
insectarium, and the description of it’s security and handling is pretty intense.
Apparently, these ants make an alarm sound as well. They are described as causing
intense pain, which often lasts 3-5 hours, and over a day to subside entirely.
Apparently, some Amazonian tribes sew these things into reed-woven sleeves for
boys to wear during manhood rituals. More power to them. I would rather have a Bar-Mitzvah,
personally, and I’m not even Jewish.
Brown Recluse:
I won’t go into too much detail about these guys, they will have their own section
in the spider page, but they are worth mentioning. Not only are they potentially
deadly, but in some cases, their bite causes rotting necrosis. Basically,
the flesh around the bite dies, and rots, but you are still alive. It is
horribly disfiguring, and it isn’t too hard to find pictures of it on the internet,
so go to Google image search and go nuts. I won’t be posting any here.
Weta:
Ever wonder where the people who did Lord of the Rings’
special effects got their name? It’s from these little guys. The weta is a form
of cricket that lives exclusively on New Zealand. Some species can be as long as
six inches, and weigh more than a small bird. They aren’t dangerous, unless
you had one thrown at you (I imagine that would hurt). Apparently, these guys
fill the same niche in New Zealand that mice fill in other parts of the world. Weird.
Giant Japanese Spider Crab:
Rarely does a “Bug” look delicious, but this thing is a huge-ass crab. If what
I read is to be believed, they can reach 12-15 feet from tip to tip with their
legs extended. Not too scary, I guess, unless you are in the water when
one crawls by.
Giant Japanese Wasp:
Here is another freaky arthropod from the Land of the Rising Sun. These guys are
Huge, sometimes almost 2 inches long. They wipe out bee colonies by attacking
and snipping the bee’s heads off. While searching for information on
this
monster, I found several sites that sold a jar of honey with one of these things
suspended in it…… Supposedly, the enzymes in the wasp’s stomach seep into the
honey, and it has a performance and endurance enhancing effect. Not quite sure
if I buy that. I won’t be spending close to $30 on bug honey anytime soon, so
I can’t confirm or deny this. Video
of them wiping out a bee colony
Camel Spider:
(Sigh)…The dreaded “Camel Spider”. Also known as a sun spider, these aren’t
even spiders (although they are arachnids). They have no venom, and are not
at all dangerous (although urban legend will tell you otherwise). They are,
however, ugly as sin.
