<a class="postlink" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,204977,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,204977,00.html</a>
Snakes, spiders, insects, wasps...they all scare the hell out of me. But wasps are the worst, mainly because they are the ones that I encounter most often. Luckily I have never been stung in all the times I have had to kill ones that have gotten into my house. The most venomous spider in the world: The Brazilian wandering spider, aka the "banana spider". Men who get bitten by it will suffer a painful erection that lasts for hours, and could lead to impotence. It gets the "banana" nickname from the fact it likes to crawl around bananas, and will sometimes even make it to the United States on banana shipments: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10025233" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10025233</a> Spoiler
Right about now is about the worst possible season for nasty shit in Australia (at least this part). It's hot, meaning reptiles are active. It's wet, meaning all sorts of shit is looking for high ground and dry areas (read: your house). Things are looking for food/mate/territory... meaning they're coming into your house. Although they're fairly harmless, I'm having daily run ins with aggressive, juvenile huntsman spiders who will pop out of anywhere and chase you away. Fuckers are getting on my nerves. What's worse is that I've got a partially landscaped yard, with a lot of area that gets inundated with weeds. They're 5 foot high at the moment (been a month since I slashed) and I've been out cutting them before I spray. There's quite a few little "burrows" in this area that have spiders in them. I don't think they're funnel webs (deadly) because the burrows aren't big enough, but they might be mouse spiders which are almost as dangerous, or wolf spiders. I'm personally not getting too close to find out. But whenever I'm out with the brushcutter, if I feel anything on my leg I'm jumping a fucking mile. I know they'll be running a mile from the nasty big thing with the two stroke blades of death, but I still can't help myself. I'm not worried about snakes, there's no way they'd be hanging around.
Thylacoleo The REAL Dropbear: <a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo</a>
Shit if I were to see that I would most likely die on the spot from shock and heart attack. This tiny little thing gets my blood flowing and me running and screaming.... Spoiler Hello my name is Bigtom0404, and here is my man card.
Duck and cover then. I give you the Huntsman Spider (who currently insist on sharehousing with me). They run across walls, floors and ceilings, they chase, they jump.... Spoiler
Heh, Huntsman's are creepy - but they're not that big comparitively. In North Queensland where my grandparents live, Bird Eating spiders are pretty common. We used to catch them when we were kids and put them on people's cars and shit to watch them freak out. This isn't a 'bird eating spider' - it's just a really fucking big spider, in the process of eating a bird. It's real. Sleep tight kids! (For reference, I don't like spiders, but once they're dead, and preferably on fire, I'm fine. I once tried to get out of a moving car when someone put a tiny, tiny spider that they had caught in a tissue on me. I only managed to catch the bird eating spiders because my cousins did all the hands on collection parts)
Australia has so many nasty critters its insane. If I ever moved there I'd be paranoid to an unhealthy amount because of all the crazy shit that lives down there. On focus, I have a very real phobia of mountain lions. I can't go on a hike or nature trail basically anywhere without the thoughts of a mountain lion attacking me consuming me. If I'm on a trail I have to be in the middle of the group. If I am mountain biking and I drop my chain I am almost terrified with the thought of one of those monsters attacking me. That and centipedes. Ever see the video of one attacking and eating a full grown mouse? If you haven't you should and make sure you show it to any small children around you. It really shows how beautiful nature is.
Can I get an AMEN? *Prostrates to the congregation* Summer 99/2000, I can't remember which. I was traveling through Sudan with my family to visit some relatives in very, VERY rural locations. Africa don't play around....it's a whole different world. There I was, sitting in a bus hurtling down the rural ass highway with 40-50 other people, minding my own business, windows open because A/C is relatively new technology...with a kid maybe 6-7 years old in the seat next to me. I was about 10. WHAM. A right hook lands on my face. My head jerked to the left. I spin around and look out the window. Nothing. Look all around. Nothing. What the hell was that? Ok never mind, back to dreaming about Power Rangers or what ever the hell I was thinking about. Something wriggled in my lap. I looked down and I will NEVER forget that moment. One huge, brown, red eyed, almost footlong, demon grasshopper was staggering around dazed in my lap, having crashed in though the open window. I nearly shit myself. A phobia was born that very day. I was having difficulty breathing. I couldn't touch it. I was going to fucking flip. I...I..I.. Was saved by the little boy next to me who immediately seized the African Version of the GameBoy Advance and started playing with it, breaking its legs off, spinning it around and tossing it around. A look of intent and joy on his face as if he was playing Pokemon Yellow. Then when he was done, he lightly tossed the beast outside the bus, through the open window, which I IMMEDIATELY SLAMMED THE FUCK SHUT despite the complaints of other passengers.
Alt Focus: My fear has to be the most irrational, Spiders, snakes, wasps, all those things can (and probably will) hurt you. But me, I hate dragon fly's. Those fucking things will get me running like a whiney little bitch. When I was young, the family would drag me down to the cabin each weekend, Even though they knew I hated it, Because in a previous year, we were swimming in the lake, While I looked up at the dock, I seen the larvae of the fucking dragon fly, since then, a good 10-15 years later, I still can't sit still when a dragon fly come's near me.
The domestic cockroach. I remember, as a kid, feeling them crawl across my feet at night. I've probably lost years of sleep listening to them scurry around. I'd consider nuking the earth to bring about its extinction, but it would still outlive us all.
This is easily the worst thread ever on posted on either TiB or RMMB or TMMB, and I can't believe I drunkenly stumbled on this looking for the most recent incarnation of the drunk thread. Anyways, here's my submission...
I'm not scared of all of them, but I do live by a simple code: If it has fewer than two or more than four legs, kill it. This has worked out for me quite nicely.
I've always wanted to visit Austrailia, then I learned that it's filled with all sorts of unholy terrors that jump out of the night at you. Paging Mr. Huntsman Spider. You say these things jump at you as well? FUCK. This thing is a fucking poltergeist. "Enjoy" this video:
I came across this story today where a guy in New Jersey was bitten by his pet cobra and immediately thought of this thread. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41368295?gt1=43001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41368295?gt1=43001</a>
Well there's a nice runner-up for the Darwins; but hey, it's absolutely worth the risk of fucking death to have that beautiful albino snake that IS FILLED WITH FUCKING VENOM. Like one of those morons who sleeps with their pet python.
I see your shark/bee combo and raise you a MOST VILE AND UNIMAGINABLE CREATURE THAT EATS PLANES!!!!! Behold: SHARKTOPUS!!! As seen on Netflix and Scifi.
It's funny because I actually have a Starburst Baboon Tarantula, two Emperor Scorpions, a Ball Python and a Bearded Dragon and non of them bother me with the exception of the tarantula. That motherfucker is the fastest thing I have ever seen with more than 4 legs. It's mean as shit, Usain Bolt fast, and eats geckos. Gorgeous little spider, but fuck if I'll ever put my hand in the cage. Regardless... random spiders scare the hell out of me. I HATE wolf spiders... Crawling all over the basement walls, sneaking into your bed at night. Watching you while you sleep... No. Just. No.
Alt Focus Goddamn barracuda's. I've read the literature. I know that attacks on divers are infrequent. I've had experienced divers tell me that they "just leave you alone". I'm still scared shitless of them. I've related previously on this board how a 6-footer swam up to my wife and I and did a slow circle around us in the Caymans two years ago. We've just returned from a trip to the Turks and Caicos islands where we spent a week on North Caicos. I was planning on doing a fair bit of snorkeling, with the hopes that my barracuda sightings would be non-existent. On the second day there, the wife and I walked to a popular snorkeling spot called Three Mary Cays, which are very three small islands close to shore. We swim around the first cay without incident, see some pretty fish. We head over to the second cay and start swimming around it and see even more fish; still no cuda's. However, we get about 3/4 of the way around the cay and discover that the water gets very shallow so we decide to turn around and head back the way we came. We swim for perhaps a minute when I see that old familiar shape hanging motionless in the water ahead of us. It was smaller than the one in the Caymans, but still about 4 feet long. I turn to my wife and do the 3-Stooges eye poke movement to myself, then point vigorously to the barracuda to make sure she sees it. She starts freaking out a bit but remembers to turn sideways to it, as do I, to appear bigger. The barracuda looks at us for a few seconds, then slowly turns and swims off. I'm thinking "Ok, he had his look and now he's moved on" so we resume swimming around the cay. A few minutes go by of uneventful snorkeling when I happen to do a shoulder check to my left. There, about 10 feet away at my 8 o'clock position, is the barracuda pacing us. Now my heart really starts racing; this fucker's following us. This continues for 5 or 6 minutes, us trying not to panic and the Cuda calmly following us. We finally get to a section near the first cay where the water gets quite shallow. We swim over this area to deeper water on the other side and the barracuda falls back and doesn't cross over. I start to relax a bit and start looking around again for fish. Under a piece of coral I spot a lionfish which I point out to my wife, so we circle the coral trying to get a better view of it. We end up facing back towards the shallow area when the lionfish comes out from beneath the coral and fans out his "feathers" for us. Quite pretty, but apparently an invasive species. So we ooh and aah at the lion fish for a few minutes, then I signal to my wife to head back to shore. I turn around to head back and there, just out of arm's reach, is the fucking barracuda giving us the hairy eyeball. The cocksucker went around the shallow area and snuck up behind us while our backs were turned looking at the lionfish, and was sitting there mere feet away. I made a loud noise to scare it away (not to be confused with screaming like a little bitch) and the cuda turned and left.