Strange encounters with unusual animals or insects

[connoisseur series500]

Don't know where the ideas for these threads pop up, but it suddenly occurred to me that I've had quite a few strange encounters with exotic animals over the years. Much of this is probably due to that fact that I've spent 22 years of my life in Tropical Third World countries.

I'll start off with bug bites.

As a kid, I would walk into wasp nests constantly. There was a lot of "bush" around where I lived and I explored quite a bit. I would work my way through a small bush where a nest was housed then I would soon be overwhelmed by an angry horde of wasps.

I remember another time when I felt the sharp sting from a wasp on the side of my neck. In anger, I pushed my shoulder against my neck for an excruciating 30 seconds as I crushed the insect in a death grip. That probably wasn't very smart as the thing was able to continue stinging me for some time.

As a kid in Jamaica, I would also run over scorpions. I was stung at least two different times. The second time barely affected me as I had developed some immunities. We had those ugly things crawling on the walls of our house, or hiding in shoes in the closet. Neither of my sisters were stung. I just asked for it, I guess. I remember looking for them by lifting up boxes in the garage. Underneath those boxes I would invariably find a couple of them as they would scramble off to find another shelter. We would take the mop handle and crush them as the insect would vainly try to sting the mop handle with his tail.

We had ugly centipedes too. I don't recall being stung by any, but my wife had a bad incident in Thailand. She was walking in sandals and this huge centipede buried its fangs into her toe. You could see the fang holes in her poor toe. The hospital prescribed some antibiotics, but her toe remained black for a few months afterwards. Horrible creatures. They find shelter amongst the construction debris created by the myriad of constructions projects--both active and abandoned in the city.

I've had encounters with dangerous snakes but have never been bitten. I'll tell that story later.

I've also had no horrible encounters with spiders. There's a dangerous spider that hangs out in banana trees, but I didn't mess around those trees, so I was fine. Scorpions were all around the sugar cane fields.

Let's hear your stories...

[Dan Gould]

After those stories, Conn, how many can compare?!

I was about 8 years old when, one summer night, a neighbor and I ran to the edge of my family's property, jumped on the fence and started pushing/pulling it back and forth. Of course, on the other side of the fence was a yellow jacket nest which wasn't exactly pleased at the disturbance.

I distinctly remember turning and running towards the house, and as I ran, screaming my head off, I remember spotting my older brother in a tree as I ran by (we had been playing hide and go seek so he had a front row seat) and also, as I headed towards the house I remember seeing my father coming out of the house, his white t-shirt really standing out in the dusk conditions as he ran around the pool towards me. I don't remember him reaching me, but when I came to, I was lying in the kitchen, surrounded by the carcasses of seemingly hundreds of yellow jackets.

Here's where it gets weird/funny.

Apparently my first words, directed at my Mom, were "David?" which she took to indicate that I was hallucinating and thought she was the neighbor kid, and so they decided to get me to a Doctor.

However, in the years since, I have always felt that rather than being confused and thinking she was him, I was in fact inquiring as to whether he was OK or not.

Fortunately I wasn't allergic and so there were no (further) ill effects. But I think you'd understand when I say that I have a "thing" about bees, wasps, etc.

[JSngry]

I saw bugs in my backyard in Tampa for the year-and-a-hald we lived there that defy description. Totally unique, at least to me. Harmless or not, an unfamiliar looking insect can be a terrifying thing.

[Alexander]

Nothing to compare with scorpions or giant centipedes (the centipedes we get around here are small and harmless. They just look like walking eyebrows and give you the willies). I did once have a close encounter with a yellowjacket nest at summer camp (I was pounding tent stakes into the ground and hit a nest. They got pissed, flew out and stung me ten or so times in my leg). I also got ran over by a rat while lying in the grass outside a hot-dog stand (something, a cat or a dog, must have been chasing it because this was in broad daylight). One summer, my family stayed in a beach-house in Virginia. When we first arrived, we all put on our bathing suits and charged into the bay. As I ran by, a local girl drawled, "Watch out for the sea nettles." I stopped in my tracks, and watched as my father, mother, and little brother all ran into the water...and came out a few seconds later covered from head to foot in little jellyfish. The water in the bay was calm, and apparently this was the time of year for jellyfish to congregate. You had to go somewhere where there was surf in order to avoid them.

Then there was the time I went over to a friend's apartment (my wife was out of town on business and his girlfriend was out of the country visiting relatives). He had just moved in, and was very concerned about a scratching noise behind the fridge. I kidded him about mice, but as we watched TV we kept hearing the noise. Finally, I looked over and saw a HUGE bat flying straight at my head. I yelled, "Shit! It's a bat!" and ducked. So there we were: Two grown men running around an apartment, waiving our hands in the air and screaming like little girls. Not one of my most dignified moments.

Finally, there was the time my wife came into the bedroom early one morning and declared dramatically: "I think I just killed a squirrel." Apparently, it ran past her in the hallway and she drove it under a step with a broom. I went and looked (in my bathrobe, I believe), and saw that the squirrel was not dead, but very scared. I tried to lure it out the backdoor, but to no avail. Finally, I got out the phonebook to find the number for animal control. The listing said that before 9 AM (and this was about 7AM!) you had to call 911. Mortified, I dialed 911 and told the operator: "Yeah, I know this sounds crazy, but I have a terrified squirrel in my back hallway?" She laughed and said: "That's nothing. I got a call yesterday about a spider." I had to wait until after ten for the animal control guy to show up, and when he did, he just picked the squirrel up with his bare hands and dropped it into his net. He took it outside, and tried to release it onto a low roof next door. The squirrel, literally frozen in fear, just rolled off the roof. He caught it in his net, and tried again. Again, the squirrel rolled off. Finally, the guy just left it on the ground and eventually it got up and ran away. The animal control guy turned to me and said: "You know, I've never seen a squirrel that scared before. It must have been a baby, because if it had been an adult, it would haved just died from fright."

Those are my animal encounters.

[J Larsen]

I'll relate my bug stories at the risk of no one believing me.

The hardest for most people to believe: I was working with some other physicists late one night in an office with a window opening on to a marshy area. It was a very hot, humid night, and for some reason there was no A/C, so we left a window open. At about midnight a dragonfly with a body about the size of a churchill cigar and a wingspan of maybe ten inches flew in to the office. It immediately settled near a ceiling light. Its body was so big you could literally see it breathing. We stared up at it awestruck for a moment, then we decided it was pretty gross, and then decided we needed to leave the room. We attempted to find some sort of net or large box to capture the insect with and show it to a biologist (they shared a building with the physicists), but by the time we returned to the office the monstrous dragonfly was gone. We later looked it up and founf that no dragonfly should be even half that size. Fortunately I have reliable witnesses to back me up on this sighting!

While I was in college in Portland, OR I rented a house near the Willamette River with a roommate. Our back yard had ladybugs capable of changing color. I picked one up once that was tranluscent. My roommate watched as it turned orange in my hand. We were not doing drugs.

More later, maybe.

[Dan Gould]

Alexander's bat story reminds me of my own.

My first year in Graduate School, I shared an apartment with two other guys in the poli-sci program. One Friday night, I stayed home studying while my roommates went out. I came out of the bedroom to discover that a quite large bat had found its way into our apartment. I dove back into my bedroom, and after crapping my pants, pondered my options.

I knew that there was no way I was going to take on this bat myself, but then again, I wasn't exactly ready to leave the safe confines of my bedroom. Finally, I had to do something. I crept out of the room and started slowly going through the apartment towards the backdoor. I made it, and made the three minute walk to the world famous Blueberry Hill bar/restaurant where I knew that one roommate had gone (he was a former Army Ranger so I figured he'd be able to handle the situation) (this gives you St. Louis people a good idea of where this apartment was).

I found my roommate, along with several other grad students and told them my story. Being in varied states of inebriation, they were quite fascinated by the idea of a bat in the apartment and several set out for the walk back.

When we got there, we had a helluva time finding the bat, but finally, it shot down a long hallway, and stopped inside the apartment's sun room, which had windows on two sides and brick on the other two. But damn if we could see him! When he folded his wings up, this huge bat was tiny, and almost hidden on the brick wall.

Then, with inebriation came wisdom.

"How about using the vacuum cleaner?"

Sounded good to the rest of us, so we wheeled it to the room, one guy held the hose up towards the bat, and on his command, I hit the "on" button. There was a big WOOOOSSSHHHH followed by weird screeching noises emanating from the cannister of the vacuum! Success!!!

So they took the vacuum out of the apartment, popped the cannister lid, and out flew the bat, a bit dirty perhaps but none the worse for wear.

Edited June 28, 2003 by Dan Gould

[J Larsen]

Dan, my next story was going to be about the two bats that took up residence in my dorm room at Princeton.

[vibes]

As I have sometimes mentioned before, I was a Mormon missionary in Hong Kong for a couple years. For about 4 months, I lived on Lantau Island, which is the largest island in the Hong Kong region and the location of the new airport. Most of the time that I lived there, I had insomnia - I'd sleep a few hours, then wake up around 1-2am, stay up a few hours more, then go back to bed. I always read during these waking periods, and since I lived in a small village, it was always dead silent. Anyway, I was reading one night and I saw something jump off the counter and run towards a corner of the room. I had never seen any animal or insect move so fast. The thing totally freaked me out. It became a regular occurrence - at least a few times a week, this thing would run up the wall, or across the floor, or jump off the counter and run to a corner of the room. I finally saw it well enough to know it was a spider, 6-8 inches in diameter. And it moved so fast, I could never catch it. Towards the end of my stay, we finally caught one and killed it, and I also figured out that there wasn't just one in the apartment, because I kept seeing them. The one we killed was probably a little bit bigger than your average tarantula. Biggest damn spider I had ever seen, until...

...I was walking through a street market on Peng Chau, another of Hong Kong's outlying islands. The other missionaries and I stopped to buy some vegetables, and on the wall behind the lady at the stand was a spider that had legs that were 8-10 inches long each. It probably moved pretty slowly, because when we walked through the market about half an hour later, it was still there on the wall...and it didn't even phase the old lady at the stand. I hope I never see one of those again.

[Dan Gould]

I finally saw it well enough to know it was a spider, 6-8 inches in diameter. And it moved so fast, I could never catch it.

And what would you have done if you did catch it?

[vibes]

I finally saw it well enough to know it was a spider, 6-8 inches in diameter.  And it moved so fast, I could never catch it.

And what would you have done if you did catch it?

From my original post:

Towards the end of my stay, we finally caught one and killed it, and I also figured out that there wasn't just one in the apartment, because I kept seeing them. The one we killed was probably a little bit bigger than your average tarantula.

What I didn't mention is what we did to kill it. We didn't actually catch it. We saw it on top of a box outside our front door, so I grabbed some glass cleaner and sprayed it a few times. Then we got some matches and some other flammable stuff and then...Well, you get the idea.

[pryan]

I recall a similar incident to the one Conn500 describes regarding wasp nests. One day a friend and I were wandering through the bush near my cabin and I happened to walk on a pile of brush, not really thinking anything of it. Seconds later I felt and heard a strange buzzing noize in my ear. This noize, of course, was a wasp and, indeed, I was stung on the ear. I started yelling to my friend, who was sligthly behind me, and he came running to see what was up. Unfortunately for him, he proceeded to run right into the same pile of brush where the nest was concealed and he was stung more than once as well. Let's just say we didn't return to that spot very often.

[catesta]

Okay here it goes.

I know this animal/reptile is not considered exotic in my area, but it's one of the best stories I've got.

Sorry for the violence and language.

****Parental Guidance Is Suggested****

A few years ago I had a house that butted up to the mountains in the east part of Phoenix. One night I was sitting down watching the tube, and I see something moving across the floor. My little Chihuahua noticed the same thing. It was a baby rattle snake about 8 inches long. I immediately put the dog up, and proceeded to try and catch the little fucker. I hate snakes so this was a real bitch. I had to flush it out from under a couch with a broom handle. I finally got it under a bucket and beat the living shit out of it with a shovel.

When my wife came home I told her the story, needless to say she was a bit freaked out. The following evening we had a 4th of July get-together planned at our place with some friends.

As the night went on we were all hanging by the pool, and cooking out. I couldn't myself, and told the story to my buddies. It's no secret that I don't like snakes so everyone had a good laugh. I still had the little bastard in the bucket, so I could show them.

No sooner than about 20 minutes after the story was told, my friends wife screamed out and said "there's a fucking snake over here."

All the guys that heard the story started to laugh their asses off as they thought I put a rubber snake in the grass by the fence.

I was the only one not laughing! I said that thing is real, and sure enough it started to move. We were about 5 feet away from it, and this sucker was huge. I went and got a flash light to illuminate the area.

A friend of mine grabbed the infamous snake shovel not far away. He started poking at the snake to get it to move away from the wall. The next thing I heard was "I missed it", and "Chris bring that fucking flash light back." When the snaked moved, I guess I must have backed up a few feet.

My friend finally manage to get the snake with the very same shovel I killed the little one with, he cut it's head off, and tossed it over the fence.

I've always thought it was the mother snake attempting a vandetta against me for killing the little one.

Anyways, not long after this incident we decided to sell the house. I never felt comfortable letting the dog out between the snakes and scorpions.

So kids, the moral of the story is...., don't but a house by the mountains in the desert if you don't dig reptiles and shit like that. B)

[J Larsen]

The world's largest spider:

Legspan: 28 cm. Body: 10 cm. Diet: Birds. Lots of birds. Evidently this thing is considered a pet by many!

[catesta]

NOT ME!

[Guest Mnytime]

I collect snakes. I have 6 of the most poisonous snakes in the world including the Inland Tapian which is #1. A single bite has enough poison to kill 100 adults in about 2 minutes.

Australia has the top 10 most posionous snakes.

Of those I have

1. Inland Taipan

2. King Brown Snake

4. Eastern Tiger Snake

7. Tiger Snake

8. Black Tiger Snake

9. Death Adder

I have been bitten by the Eastern Tiger and it was not pleasant. I always keep a supply of fresh anti-venom around as you can imagine.

I also collect Python's and Boas. The largest is 17 feet now. It's a Reticulated Python, which can grow to 30 feet.

The damn things bite is worse than a poisonous snake in terms of pain. And I have first hand knowledge on that.

I am also intrested in mutations.

I have some other interesting animals as well.

Yes I know what you're thinking

Edited June 28, 2003 by Mnytime

[JSngry]

Also from the Tampa Experience, An Anecdote About An Amphibian Ambush:

My wife, the lovely and talented Brenda, quite reluctantly took a transfer/promotion to Tampa when her company closed up its Dallas offices in 1990. My mom and dad came out from Texas to help us get moved in since Brenda was pregnant at the time. One of the first things I did our first day in the house was, of course, to make a trip to the grocery store. I bought a head of lettuce, since a simple salad is seemingly mandatory at every meal my mom has anything to do with. She's got this whole lettuce preparation ritual that involves rinsing, coring, and wrapping the leaves in moist paper towels. WAAAYY to involved for me, but that's her thing, and she insisted on Brenda not cooking while she was there.

Well, I got back from the grocery, unpacked the food, and went back to helping my dad unpack all the boxes that were everywhere and asking Brenda how she felt, seemingly at 5 minute intervals. A few mintes into this drill, the whole neighborhood was shattered by the kind of half-scream/half hoot/half howl that only a daughter of the American South could muster, and only when taken by surprise and scared totally out of her wits. I immediately ran to the kitchen. My dad kinda jogged (guess he'd heard that sound than a few times...). My mother was half-laughing and half-crying. When she finally got control of herself, she pointed to the lettuce in the sink and said, "There's a FROG in there!"

Well, I looked into the sink, and sure enough, there was a tiny green frog, about the size of a quarter, swimming happily in the kitchen sink, using the lettuce leaves for a, I don't know, substitute lilly pads. Guess he had been hiding out in the head of lettuce in the grocery, a stowaway hoping to catch a ride to the nearest swimming hole. Gotta admire his plan - it worked!

We put the little fella out in the back yard, had a good chuckle, wondered aloud just what the hell kind of place Tampa was that amphibians resided in grocery store produce, and soon sat down to one of the rare saladless meals my mom has ever served.

[Guest Mnytime]

Through some of my Dr. Frankenstein breeding I have one that makes this look dark skinned.

[J Larsen]

When I first moved to New York, I temporarily moved in to my friends' apartment in Brooklyn. The apartment was pretty gross, with lots of cockroaches. About a week into my stay, a praying mantis showed up in the apartment. My theory is that it came in with the organic vegetables one of my friends had delivered every week. At first, we were a little bummed on the idea of having such a large (and somewhat aggressive) insect in such a small apartment. But we soon realized that the cockroach problem was virtually eliminated. We decided to let the mantis stay. It lived with us for about a month. We found it dead in the living room one morning (perhaps it overate). The next day the roaches were back. I moved out shortly thereafter.

[Use3D]

Boy I could go on and on. I work at a big pet store and we sell all this shit. Well, my department does anyway. I'm the reptile dude. We even sell those nasty centipedes that connoisseur mentioned. And we had a nearly full grown Goliath Birdeating taratula. Acutally in the wild their diet consists mostly of small rodents and insects. They got their name for being tree dwellers and preying on small birds once in a while.

Awesome collection Mnytime, here it's illegal to sell venomous snakes without a permit, but you can keep as many as you like. I personally don't keep any of these creatures, spending 35+ hours a week with them is enough for me.

[Jazzmoose]

Biggest bug I've ever seen was a moth that flew into my apartment the same week I was packing up to combine households with my wife. Darned thing was about three inches long with a huge wingspan. In fact, I could hear the wings from across the room; when it buzzed me I couldn't help hitting the floor. It was almost like the thing knew it had me going; it kept making passes at my head. Unfortunately for it, it flew too low and too near Moose who was still at that "eat anything that moves" kitten stage (hmm...it's lasted five years now!). Anyway, after that, Moose stood there chewing with moth innards oozing down his chin, and the other half of the moth was contemplating the hazards of attacking people with cats as the lights slowly went out......

[Guest Chaney]

You were frightened by a moth Jazzmoose? A moth is just an obese butterfly!

Now if you want scary:

A simple (and speaking of moths, as harmless) House Centipede (Chilopoda:Scutigera coleoptrata ). My family had these in the basement when I was a kid. Every once in awhile I 'd play big game hunter and dare enter the basement with a weak flashlight and a hammer. I'd find the little (BIG!) bastards and bash in their ugly heads - or any part of their body that I could manage to hit just before I'd run away! The strangest thing was that one once -- and only once -- SCREAMED as my hammer met its body. SCREAMED!

I can pick up any bug / insect that I might encounter. These things turn me into a squealing girlie. (Sorry ladies. Ladies?)

Mny, can I borrow a snake?

[Brad]

These are some weird stories, especially Dan's.

I had an experience with a horse or a pony but it was all my fault. When we lived in Uruguay when I was around 7, there was an empty lot next store, where the father of the 3 girls I used to play with kept a pony. Well, one day, bored, with nothing to do, I wandered over and decided to pet the pony's behind. What do you think it did? It did whatever animal bothered would do. It kicked me from behind right in the solar plexus. The funny thing was that I didn't feel a thing, just sort of surprised. Needless to say, I found something else to do.

[Christiern]

• On a hot summer night in Perugia, I attended an outdoor concert that was a part of the Umbria 84 Jazz Festival. Eliane Elias was in the middle of a ever so tinkly, very boring piano solo when this enormous dragon fly--the biggest I've ever seen--alit on the keyboard. Ms. Elias jumped back from the piano. There was applause. Mine was for the fly and I have a feeling that I was not alone in my enthusiasm for it. B)
  
  
  
  In Haiti, a giant spider and an equally large bug, of a species unknown to me, decided to have an encounter in my hotel bathroom. It was a small hotel that left its guests alone at night, so there was nobody around to deal with these creatures, and I was certainly not going near them. I ended up spending the night seated on a bench outside. I couldn't live in a region that has large bugs--New York water bugs are bad enough, but I have only seen three in the 40 years I have lived in this apartment. Now all I have is the occasional computer bug, but my Macs keep that to a minimum.
  
  I once saw a mouse, so I bought one of those mouse hotels, or whatever they call them, a rectangular piece of plastic with glue on it. It didn't take long for the mouse to get stuck there, but I could not get myself to pick it up for disposal. When I called a neighbor, he said "You afraid of a little mouse? I'll be right over. He came over right away, but when I showed him the mouse, he said, "It's still alive! I'm not going near it."
  
  So I asked him if it would make a difference if the mouse was unconscious, and he said it would. I then did a terrible thing, I took a roach spray, Raid™ (this was before Combat™ liberated me), and aimed at the mouse. It didn't faint, but the Raid dissolved the glue, so it ran off!
  

[J Larsen]

Tony, I encountered one of those milipedes in that same house in portland where we had the color-changing ladybugs. It scared the hell out of me at first just because it was so fast. My roommate caught it and fed it to his very large goldfish.

[Jazzmoose]

You were frightened by a moth Jazzmoose? A moth is just an obese butterfly!

I don't know what it is, but I just don't trust any animal that flies!!