Do you loathe insects?

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I hate the sensation of an insects' body parts touching my skin. I'm also terrified they'll bite/sting me. And some of them are just plain scary to look at.

For me...

1. All earwigs must die.

2. I don't like bugs that fly in my face or ears. They will die.

3. No insects in my room. They will die.

4. Any bloodsucking insects must die.

5. Flies, especially horseflies must die.

Other than that, I find insects interesting for the most part and let them be as long as they aren't interfering with my life.

Theres wars, murders (every day), suicides, abortions (its good!)lol, and executions. Everything I listed happens on a daily basis. Still we are having a tough time reserving resources and living space.

I like insects a lot more than I like people (which echoes some similar things said by other folks here). In fact, insects and other small athropods fascinate me to no end. I'm especially fond of spiders. My current favourite is the European garden spider, an orb spinner which, despite its name, is very common in the Pacific Northwest. This year's batch of spiders are growing big and fat as the fall comes. I enjoy handling them, since they are very scary looking, but docile and relatively harmless to humans. I brought the biggest one I could find (just a bit bigger than an American silver dollar, with legs out) into he house last night to show the wife; she doesn't seem to appreciate such things as much as I do. I'm trying to understand her apparent discomfort around such tiny, harmless creatures; as I let the spider creep around on my hands, she kept saying it was creepy, and to get it away from her. The one I found last night was not unlike this big girl (who I snapped a pic of about a year ago):

Beautiful, no?

I've said before, seriously, and I'll say again: I someday plan to retire to Iceland and become Iceland's preeminant entomologist.

Good fortune,

- Icarus Loves Spiders

...Yes, beautiful looking it may be, but Im sure its intentions are a bit more ugly than they might seem.. As it appears to be venomous.. aka.. It can kill you just from a friggin bite.. Personally I think thats rediculous. I could never live in a region where theres always poisonous critters crawling around.

I find spiders like that around where i live quite often. They sometimes make webs right over my window and sit there. It's probably a strategic location since a most of the dumb bugs will try to smack my windows at night. Easy catches.

Are you talking about the pic of the garden spider I just posted? As I mentioned, this spider is harmless to humans; it rarely bites (takes a lot of provocation, bascially you have to force it), and when it does, the bite causes "mild discomfort", nothing more. A bite from a fire ant is worse. I was holding a rather large one just last night. Other parts of the world are different, but in North America, there are only a few spiders whose bite is something to worry about, and none of them is even that terribly serious if treated properly. Brown recluse is probably the worst, as their venom is also I digestive enzyme that causes a rotting wound. But the garden spider? These are our friends; they help keep the insect population under control.

Good fortune,

- Icarus the Spiderman

*shivers*
But now that I read the spider you were talking about is in fact harmless, Id like to even keep one as a pet. They look fascinating.

Indoors, I only kill insects that are pests. When I find a harmless/preditory bug in my house, I usually trap it under a cup, then slide a piece of paper under it so that I can easily pick it up and take it outside.

The most problematic bug at my house is the carpenter bee. Out on my porch, I can hear them in their burrows chewing up my house. I swat as many out of the air as I can with a badmintin racket. I use the same racket in conjunction with a flyswatter to grab them from flowers and then crush them with my sandal.


One of the bugs that I find most pleasant (other than butterflies) are hummingbird moths. I get angry when I find that a praying mantis has caught one. On two seperate occasions, when outside picking off carpenter bees, I was able to thwart a mantis from snatching an unsuspecting hummingbird moth, by holding the racket between them.

Hate the crawling feeling on the skin and especially in the hair.

Twice now, one of them has woven a web right over the french door that leads out onto my back deck; and twice now, I've opened the door, walked out, and gotten a web right in the face. Once opon a time, doing such would really have freaked me out (Argh! Where is the spider!? Is it in my hair? Is it on my neck!? Argh!?); but since researching these particular spiders, that fear is gone. Some of them do seem to have some sentient strategy in where they place their insect traps.


My bad, I should have provided a link for more information. Those ARE some freaking scary looking spiders; to be quite honest, I have been terrified of them for most of my life; but, recently, upon researching them and learning they are harmless, that fear has dissapeared. Several times now, I've even tested this knowledge by plucking rather large, scary looking ones from their webs and handling them. I've cupped very big ones in my hands, as if tempting them to bite me; no bites so far. They seem just to want to be left alone; their strategy for dealing with me seems entirely focused on escape. I typically handle them for a bit, and then deposit them back near their web; much to my astonishment, they typically just go back to the middle of their orb webs as if nothing has happened.

This is an area that is interesting to me, because it is one of those fears that we have (including me! until very recently) that has no real basis behind it. There's enough in this world that is actually dangerous to be afraid of; I try to make it a point to weed out the things that do not actually warrant any real fear; part of my problem is that I hate being afraid of anything, so I tend to challenge those things that scare me. Sometimes (not always) through this process I learn that there was nothing to be afraid of in the first place. Thus it was with the scary looking garden spiders. Back when I lived in Florida, the same was true of black racer snakes, which at one time scared the s**t out of me (it's a snake!), but I later learned that not only do they not have venom, they have no teeth. At which point I would take great pleasure in catching them (when I could - they were fast! Thus their name). We live and learn.

Good fortune,

- Icarus Hates to be Afraid

Seriously they have no teeth? We have them up here and Ive always been afraid of them, because I thought they might bite. Ive noticed they are mostly hidden in plant life surrounding a pond, so once you see them crossing a path or something they are hidden already and far away. What equipment did you use to catch them? Or did you just use your hands?

I find insects interesting. They have adapted to life in all sorts of inhospitable places which I admire.

A scorpion (not an insect of course) lived amicably in my office for a while - keeps out the cockroaches.

Not what I would count as teeth; some slightly sharpish protrusions in the boney ridges in their mouths that help them hold onto what they grab with their mouths; from what I've seen, nowhere near enough to cause either puncture or abrasion in human skin. And you're right, they might bite, especially the bigger ones; but their bite is more like a pinch that doesn't even really hurt, maybe just startle you so you drop the snake; I've gotten much worse pinches from crayfish.

As for catching them, it depends a lot on where I spot one. If its got brush and weeds to go into, it's gone. But there was once where I happened upon one crawling along at the bottom of a fence, on wood mulch and tall shrubs; it really had nowhere to go except away, fast. And I did mention those things are fast, right? As that one shot off, I dove and grabbed him about 2/3 down his back; more luck than anything; I got musked of course. A couple of times I've used sticks to help me pin them down gently so I can pick them up. Interestingly, one of my old cats, a Cornish Rex named Puck, used to catch them all of the time; he would then bring them into my garage (as always, a workshop/laboratory), and drop them in there so he could play with them; in the garage, they are of course rather easy to catch just by grabbing them.

Not a racer, but I caught this cute little guy out back behind my cabin just a few days ago:

He musked me too. I snapped a few picks, showed him to my son, and put him back where I found him.

Now, of course, I can't be caught on record recommending people go around grabbing snakes. I am, of course, a highly trained professional by the virtue of being crazy. But so was Steve Irwin, and don't forget what happened to him.

Have fun.

Good fortune,

- Icarus the Snakecharmer

yes, I dislike incest.



Seriously, I like insects. They're our friends.

Something I cant stand about catching smaller snakes is that they release this aweful smelling white goo out of.. Well not sure what hole it is back there but its something lol. To me it pretty much defeats the fun in catching them. Its been so long for me though, Id love to come across one again.