Florida Gots Them Palmetto Bugs.
Other places gots them cockroaches.
In California, people gots these:
Jerusalem Crickets or as some call 'em "Potato Bugs."
They's bigguns. Some up to 3" long, with they beady eyes and they sharp jaws, like.
In Mexico, they gots 'em too. There, they call them Niñas de la Tierra (Children of the Earth).
The first time my wife, recently moved from Minnesota to California, saw one, she screamed and I came running. I picked it up, put it on the palm of my hand and let her have a good look at it while I told her all about it. After that, they resumed their wanderings in the house without causing alarm. The cats liked to bat them around, but never bit one after the first time. Those orange and black stripes say, "I taste terrible. Leave me alone, please."
They can bite, and have a pretty good pinch, but otherwise they're harmless. They eat decaying vegetation and harm nothing.
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but I gave these suckers a wide berth when I encountered them.
Usually found near decaying wood & forest vegetation, these so-called 'cow killers' would raise my hackles just from the coloration alone.
the Tarantula Hawk is enormous and has a very, very nasty sting:
The 'cicada killer' is a solitary wasp that builds underground nests. It usually doesn't bother people, but one apparently liked the smell of my underarm deodorant and lit on my shirt over my armpit. Not knowing it was there, I lowered my arm and ZAPPO! Instant excruciating pain that took me to the ground, followed by intense swelling that ran in a broad streak down my side. Made me wonder how the cicada doesn't die immediately.
from Wiki:
I hope Nebraska doesn't have those critters!
He's a biologist and wanted to create a (necessarily subjective) pain scale.
Talking about scientific dedication!
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/why-you-dont-want-to-get-stung-by-a-tarantula-hawk/
in the cockroach family. Some species from other continents are amazingly large.
Here's a biggun from Australia:
I never saw them as a child. As an adult, I've handled many, though:
Some species can be up to 24" long:
Here's a smaller North American species:
I love banana slugs!
For me that is a mark of a well-made film or character...when details of the presentation form strong associations in the mind, you know you have a well-written or presented character!
Of the Outter Limits about the escaping "prisoners "of Zanti ..?
They looked like those bugs.....
I've never seen one, although I've seen pictures. I'm rarely in Florida, though.
Thanks!
ran into a lot of these when working in Louisiana... largest in the US
when I was new to southern California, I was at a Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house. She was out in the country back then, and I remember going into a dark bedroom to close a window and I stepped on something that sounded solid in a shag rug. I thought I had dropped something so I reached down to pick it up and found a glob of some wet, disgusting ooze... I had squashed one of them things. I did not have dinner that night. 't'sall I'm gonna say.
I've never seen one before in my life. This year, they're all over the place. These are the only critters that bother my wife.
