Muzack

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Disgusting Insects/Random Fact #3

Recently I watched a television show called I was Bitten. It featured a variety of horrifying footage of brown recluse spider bites, rattlesnake bites, and even bear and shark attacks. Viewers were not spared from pictures and video of pus filled wounds, rotted tissue and bone-deep, teeth-made gashes. This gave me the idea for not only my next travel blog post, but also my third random fact: I actually enjoy watching crazy, disgusting, f**d up television shows. Beyond my morbid fascination though, I think it of the utmost necessity that while I research places I would like to visit, I may want to brush up on what deadly, hideous creatures I am very likely to encounter. As fascinating as it is to watch suffering and torture from afar, I am very reluctant to be the victim.

So everyone knows about disease carrying tsetse flies, mosquitoes harboring malaria, and vicious Africanized honey bees, and we’ve all seen that picture of a soldier holding an enormous Iraqi Camel Spider (they do only grow to six inches though…only six inches?!), but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Following are various bizarre, out-of-this world insects that most people don’t even know exist, much less right in their own backyards (or bed sheets).


Japanese Giant Hornet


This hornet located in Japan is just the size of the average persons thumb, (the entire thumb) but their sting can be fatal. Not only can the poison they inject disintegrate the flesh around the sting site, they can also shoot it over a few feet! In addition, they can fly 50 feet in a day and the pheromones they give off attract every other hornet from that hive to chase you 50 feet and shoot acidic poison in your eyes!! Apparently about 40 people a year die like this.


Bullet Ant
These inch-long ants live in the rainforests in Central and South America from Nicaragua to Paraguay. They live in trees and, get this, they shriek at you before they attack you! So that noise coming at you from the canopy of trees above is not a howler monkey, but an ant. AN ANT! And its about to attack you with an “unusually severe” sting that has been described as being similar to getting shot.

Bot Fly

So this one takes the cake for me. There are many species of Bot Fly, from the Horse Stomach Bot Fly to the Human Bot Fly, with most species found, once again, in Central and South America and other species in various corners of the world. This little dandy lays its eggs in grass, which animals eat (hence the origin of the name Horse Stomach Bot Fly) or on horseflies or mosquitoes which then land on humans (hence the origin of the name Human Bot Fly). What happens next is a scene from a B movie on the Sci-Fi channel. The eggs hatch on or in the animal or human and the larvae proceed to feed on the flesh or tissue of the victim.



Huge Spider

No-one seems to know what this is, but I thought I’d just throw it in, because it is absolutely HUGE. Imagine if you turned a corner in your house and this was sitting eye-level on your wall ready to attack and eat your face!!!


Bugs on Hand


Now apparently these bugs, whatever they are, aren’t poisonous, but I think it’s mighty ambitious of this person to have them crawling all over their arm.

I guess the bottom line is that yes most bugs get a bad rap, they’re not that threatening and obviously here for a reason. Their presence also won’t deter me from visiting any country, but I will definitely be more cautious when I rest up against a tree as I’m hiking through a rainforest in South America, or even just lounging in a house in Vanuatu (see Getting Stoned with Savages). I don’t mind sharing the planet with these creatures, I’d just rather I wasn’t aware of their brain-burrowing capabilities…



5 comments:

Brandie said...

SICK!!! You're SICK!!

mozkabi said...

I think that after reading this post I'll stay indoors forever. Just in case.

Anonymous said...

ok, stop what you're doing cause i'm about to ruin the image and the style that you're used to....remember these lyrics from the song humpty hump??? anyways, i feel like they are pretty fitting here....bobeaks, wtf is wrong with you?? you are a strange strange little person....but i still love ya...if you are really THAT into these little critters i think that you've got to take it to the next level....you've got to hit up a good old fashioned pet store so you can see these creepy crawlies in action and in person.....no wonder i never got advice from you on where to live that was warm with no earthquakes or hurricanes or creepy crawlies....you just start researching creepy crawlies and forget about everything else!!! on a positive note, i GUESS it's good to be finding SOMETHING that your passionate about, albeit it being weird as s**t...somehow there's a part of me that feels like if this were 10 years ago you'd be likely to go into an emo phase and grow out your hair and dye it a weird color and listen to f***ed up music and look at your creepy crawlies all day long.....but thank God we're out high school right?? well, thanks for sharing about those gross little facts of life that most of us wish would somehow just disappear, but we learn to deal with from a distance.....maybe you can get a job on one of those shows!!!!!

Froznic said...

You have an awesome sense of humor, made me laugh even though this post is supposed to be "creepy" =P

Anonymous said...

I think the huge spider is a whip scorpion. They're supposedly harmless... not that I wouldn't shit my pants if that thing got within ten feet of me...