EEeeeeeeek! EEEEEEEEKKKKKK! ANTHER ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lupis]

I have an unstable relationship with spiders. The huge ones - tarantulas and that sort - are kind of cute. Too big to be scary. The tiny ones are too tiny to be dangerous, in my twisted mind. The coin/silver dollar sized ones? Arrghhhhh.

Keep in mind when the whole "Brown Recluse" thing is brought up... Nine times out of ten, what are blamed to be Brown Recluse bites are not. People see a sore or a welt and immediately scream "Brown recluse!" because there are craploads of brown spiders out there. It could just be an allergic reaction or something else completely unrelated to spiders, but well, it's a brown spider.

So don't fear them *too* much. It's not extremely likely that you saw one. Also, Brown Recluse are fairly nice spiders, considering. They're the ones that are afraid of you.

(You want scary? Sydney Tunnel Web Spider. THAT'S scary. You know the saying "They're more afraid of you than you are of them"? Not with these creatures. They will actively CHARGE at you. Try to smash them or sweep them away with a broom and they will actually climb up the broom handle to bite you. Even worse, they don't stay still to make webs, at least not the males. The males wander around.)

[Nubhorns]

This is all I have to contribute:


I think much the way Lupis does. Big as my palm? No big deal, I've wanted a pet tarantula for years. Super tiny? Go forth and eat many a fly! Coin sized? AAAGH DIE DIE DIE

Honestly I have more issues with flies, mosquitos and roaches than I do anything else. And when it comes to roaches, the smaller they are the more annoyed I am - I kept a decent size Palmetto bug as a pet before I got my dog, but he wound up getting flushed down the toilet. :l

[Aeladrine]

Spiders I am not okay with. At all. The get smashed by my shoes.

Snakes, however? Snakes and I are chill.

[Lupis]

Snakes are <3.

[Feralclaw]

Omg... Some of these pics had me laughing so hard that I cried... However, the pic with the huge spider and the hundreds of little ones... I'mma have nightmares tonight. XD

[Corpsebryde]

Having been born and raised in Florida I am officially in need of serious therapy after all the scary bugs I've come in contact with. I shudder thinking about all the ones that attacked me and my co-workers at a plastic factory we worked in during the graveyard shift (11pm-7am). I like to frame insects so whenever someone at work would find a big ugly one, they'd give it to me. These are what I have framed so far:

This is a Giant Water beetle. It landed on my friend George (he worked at the end of the pack line near the big doors so everything from spiders to bats came at him, lol). They eat fish, frogs, insects, etc. They're nicknamed "toe biters" and leave a nasty mark if you're unfortunate enough to get bitten. What you can't see is their large, sucking mouth parts underneath the eyes. The sucker resembles a giant mosquito or fly. /cringe


A male Southern House spider. They tend to hide in dark holes and corners and seem to be harmless. They're often misidentified as brown recluses.


These are also harmless, feasting on wood and plant materials. It's a Pine Sawyer beetle.


Finally a Rhinoceros beetle, also harmless but pretty large.


I had some others captured but they escaped, flew downstairs and attacked my dad so he squashed them =/

[GormanGhaste]

a Rhinoceros beetle, also harmless but pretty large

That's a gorgeous beetle!

[Rhyela]

I didn't used to like beetles much, but I really like the Hercules beetles. I caught an Eastern Hercules Beetle dynastes tityus in southern Ohio when I was camping with my family one weekend. He was a beatiful, big sucker. He was a lot heavier than I expected him to be, too. I really wanted to keep him but the hubby said I already have too many critters. Puh.



This isn't my hand, by the way, but a picture I found online just to show how big they are.

[GormanGhaste]

A fluffy scarab!

[Rhyela]

D'awwwwww! It's so CUTE! :3 And what a beautiful carapace (is that the right word? I am not a beetle expert, I admit)!

[Aeladrine]

Don't forget camel spiders, people! They're the absolute grossest things I have ever seen!



These ugly buggers look like some freakish mix between an ant and a scorpion, but they're a spider. A nasty, mean, sneaky spider. These buggers will sit somewhere for days, not moving at all, and then, when you go to dump them outside, they'll attack. Scariest thing of my life. >:1

Edit: Image stretched the page lots. Found a new one. Current and previous images were both found via Google.

[Litlemouse]

This thread has gone off with a mind of it's own

[Rhyela]

Before we give spiders an even worse rep, I would just like to point out that camel spiders are not, in fact, true spiders. They're from a different order in the class arachnida. Just like how scorpions are technically arachnids but are not spiders.....same with these guys.

Had to do a quick search and their actual order name is solifugae.

Camel "Spiders"
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Subclass: Dromopoda
Order: Solifugae

True Spiders
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
(unranked): Arachnomorpha
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae

Scorpions
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Subclass: Dromopoda
Order: Scorpiones


etc.

I just don't want misinformation giving true spiders an even worse rep than they already have. I know you weren't doing it intentionally, of course.

Edit: The ones that really give me the willies are whip scorpions, which are not actual scorpions (lol), but are in the order schizomida. Common names are a pain, which is why I try to learn and remember the latin names whenever I can. Anyway, these things are ugly as sin and if I ever saw one, I'd probably pee myself.

Whip "Scorpions"
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Schizomida

[Qinni]

Don't forget camel spiders, people! They're the absolute grossest things I have ever seen!

These ugly buggers look like some freakish mix between an ant and a scorpion, but they're a spider. A nasty, mean, sneaky spider. These buggers will sit somewhere for days, not moving at all, and then, when you go to dump them outside, they'll attack. Scariest thing of my life. >:1

Edit: Image stretched the page lots. Found a new one. Current and previous images were both found via Google.

Camel spiders aren't spiders. They are called Solifugae.

Wiki Page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae

Solifugae are not true spiders, which are from a different order, Araneae. Like scorpions and harvestmen, they belong to a distinct arachnid order. There are about 1065 species of solifuges known, grouped in about 153 genera and 12 families belonging to the order Solifugae:

Ammotrechidae
Ceromidae
Daesiidae
Eremobatidae
Galeodidae
Gylippidae
Hexisopodidae
Karschiidae
Melanoblossidae
Mummuciidae
Rhagodidae
Solpugidae

[Aeladrine]

Thanks for the fix, guys.(:

Though I'm standing by my statement that they're ugly as sin.

[Nachtwulf]

We have solifuges here... but like the name indicates, they 'flee the light' and you pretty much never see them unless you go rooting around under rocks (in which case, out here you deserve what you get.)

And whip scorpions (aka vinegaroons) are harmless! Well, I guess they can pinch you kinda hard, but pfff... what's a pinch. They won't tear flesh like those dang palo verde beetles.

We have a bunch of very attractive insects though, along with the terrifying ones, like these 'color-changing leaf beetles':


And the 'Euphoria' species of scarabs... the green ones are probably familiar to lots of people as 'green peach beetles' but... there's a lot more than that!

[Aeladrine]

...Gross. I'm keeping my nose out of this thread from now on. They're pretty, but they're also gross. :1

[Qinni]

A fluffy scarab!

Cute!

[GormanGhaste]

D'awwwwww! It's so CUTE! :3 And what a beautiful carapace (is that the right word? I am not a beetle expert, I admit)!

The carapace (the 'skin') is underneath all the fluff. The two shiny, golden structures in the picture are elytra, which protect the flying wings when the beetle is at rest. They open up to expose the wings in flight.

[Slapperfish]

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