Suddenly -20 zero and 3 feet of snow aint so bad.

Glamdring

That is the only thing I like about living in a cold weather state, it keeps the creepy crawlies to a more manageable size. 

No kidding.  There are advantages to living in a place where the winter is cold enough to kill.

Good on yer G, I was about to cook my dinner. Think I'll just have another beer.....

Hi;

     As you know I live in Texas Hill Country. We have them. On Good authority( A Game Warden Trained in Insects.) the Young uns are more dangerous. They will hit you with a whole dump of venom at one strike. The Adults on the other hand will size the venom output to their needs.They try to avoid Humans. 

Thanks G, there went my appetite for dinner......

In Japan and Asia, there are giant water bugs.  They look like big cockroaches, but they live underwater, can fly, AND bite!  A friend of a friend ate one at an open market on a dare (yes they were being sold as food  ), and his reaction was as expected - Bleurgh bluergh bluergh bluergh!!!  It looked so nasty, like a 3" roach that died a long time ago under a wet straw mat!

Glamdring

That is the only thing I like about living in a cold weather state, it keeps the creepy crawlies to a more manageable size.  My family in Arizona would always tell stories of tarantulas, wolf spiders, black widows, and scorpions.  I'd love to go visit, but as an arachnaphobe I think it would be a vacation spent in a constant state of paranoia.

 

If you don't like spiders Glamdring, you're not gonna like Aussie. Don't have tarantulas or black widows, but we have funnel webs, redbacks, wolf spiders and all sorts of bitey things. The most common are huntsman spiders. They can grow as big as your hand and love to hang out inside houses and sheds. Luckily they are not poisonous. They do bite however and move like greased lightning. They also have a habbit of dropping from ceilings and door frames. Fun.

Well, if you want entertainment (and potentially alot of exercise) in Texas, just take a casual stroll through the roadside bluebonnet patches. Those places have the highest per capita rattlesnake count of any area in the state.

Yes, it's a simple thing, like "Oh look at the pretty flowers; I think I'll pick some .  .  . "

KAPOW!             "Hello, 911, yeah, I think I screwed up."

If you bury it in tree pitch, then bury the whole thing, in 65 million years, someone can dig it up, extract DNA, and create a really big one, ala Jurassic Park.

When I was 11 and lived in the rural Texas hill country I was outside one summer. We had an old "sparky" type throw switch for the main power but it was long since disconnected. I opend it up (courious kid) and found an old birds nest. broken eggs and such and I reached my hand in there to sweep it out and you guessed it, BAM! Man that sucker hurt like H***. Finger swelled up and I was in pain for days. I put some wet baking powder on the entry wound, wraped in a paper towel because that what my mom would have done. The beast was about and inch and a half long before I obliterated it with my boot, dust to dust....little bas**rd!

Say what you will about Ohio, but I am glad I live where there isn't a lot of wildlife that can kill me! 

I'm glad I don't run into them.

Only critter I faced yesterday was while reading a water meter- popped the lid and there was a brown toad about the size of my fist sitting there right square on the meter proud as you please. Wish I'd had my phone to snap a photo.

armornut

  Cool but none for me thanks,  I was always told "they are more scared of you than you are of them......fine but I cant poison someone with just a touch.

     To bad you couldn't use a filter and make it look like the critter from Predator.

 

scottrc

He'd look good in cast resin and used as a paperweight.  

 

That's what my wife said.... He's out in the garage drying out now...

He'd look good in cast resin and used as a paperweight.  

I generally dislike anthing with more than 4 legs. This little feller would surely spook me.

I remember back in the mid 70s opening my mom’s heavy and large flip up garage door and finding a huge scorpion on the bottom of the door an inch or two away from my hand! Thank God that beast was asleep otherwise I would have gotten a nasty sting. Using a stick I dropped him into a small glass jar and filled it with iso alcohol then put the top on and kept it for several years. 

But the Gila's are fairly easy to deal with, just don't get near them mouth.  Rattlers, you take precautions like not stepping over logs, watch where you put your hands if you're running around in rocky areas. Not sure fire, but takes 70% out of the equation.  Grew up around hot tails.

Dodgy, you've got plenty of other scary critters where you live. The smaller scorps are a fair trade off.

Glam, you forgot about the rattlers and Gila monsters here... this place has it all.. 

That is the only thing I like about living in a cold weather state, it keeps the creepy crawlies to a more manageable size.  My family in Arizona would always tell stories of tarantulas, wolf spiders, black widows, and scorpions.  I'd love to go visit, but as an arachnaphobe I think it would be a vacation spent in a constant state of paranoia.

That is one very nasty bug Stik and you can have him! We have scorps in tthe area where I live, but only little black things about an inch long. Don't think the're poisonous.

Back when I was going through S.P. combat school at Camp Bullis in 1971 I had to guard teh class armory one night.  I watched as ants held down a scorpion while others widened the opening to the colony.  When it was big enough they dragged it down.  It may have been only about two inches or so long but it didn't matter.

Real G

I like bugs, but that scorpion looked really mad!

Im pretty sure that he was in the first photo! Ready to take on my dog when I first caught sight of him!

HooYah Deep Sea

In central Arizona, they live in the palm trees among other places. In high school I used to have a job trimming palms. Every once in a while you'd lop off a big frond and the critters would pop out and scare the !@#$$^% outa you.

Well... I don't have any palms in my yard... yet. But I won't be doing any tree trimming once they are planted....

Looks like I'll have to find some high school kid to keep the tradition alive... 

armornut

To bad you couldn't use a filter and make it look like the critter from Predator.

Yeah that would be really cool! But way beyond my skill level... 

wpwar11

Unless it's hearing "Rock You Like A Hurricane" I want nothing to do with scorpions.

Im with you there. Love that band, don't like the critters! I guess this species has one of the strongest venoms from what I've read. From a big boy like this I'm sure that would be pretty bad.

When I visit my buddy in San Anotonio I  occasionally see them.   Never seen one that big.  I have a client that has a few in a tank.  To me that's just weird.  Never liked the things.  It probably started in high school.  Our rival high school was the Scorpions.  Unless it's hearing "Rock You Like A Hurricane" I want nothing to do with scorpions.  The devils insect.  That's all I got for scorpion jokes.  

Got them all over Oregon...wood scorps in the SW part of the state, little red/brown maybe inch to two.  Central Oregon has their yellow buggers, inch to two.  Either under rocks, down wood of dried cowpies

I like bugs, but that scorpion looked really mad!  The ones we have here are smaller and not terribly aggressive.  They are tough little buggers, like yellow jackets and carpenter bees.

I don't do cockroaches though.  Don't like them.  Nope, nope.

Wow,he's a big one.