Bugs are scary :-(

[scicop]

I use to work with Drosophila (fruit fly) as a model system for nervous system development. Our floor was a "fly" floor since there were many labs who were fly based and we even had "fly rooms"..where we keep all of our stocks (various genetic strains, i.e. balancers, p-elements, transgenics) . Anyway, since we had so many flys on our floor it was very common for them to end up in our food and drinks.

 

And, as the mad scientist we were, we became so use to them in our food, that it became quite common for us to eat/drink stuff with flys in it without a fuss. It was quite common place to spit out a fly from time to time..or just swallow them. Nobody cared..it was inevitable that you were gonna eat flys at some point!!!

 

if you want to get rid of your fear of insects..definately try working in a drosophilia lab, not only will you get rid of your fear of maggots/insects, you may even get to enjoy the taste!!!

 

And..yes..for you drosophila fans out there..i was a fly-sucker until we got the CO2 pistol valves.

[Steph]

The closest thing I have is I get a little nervous when there is a bee within a six inch invisible bubble around me. If I have a phobia' date=' it's one I haven't found out about yet.

 

With you being a vegan, I thought you'd me more like me about bugs. I won't kill them, but I'll move them. In fact, it gets on my nerves when people kill spiders just because they are spiders.[/quote']

 

I'm the worst carnivore there is and I won't kill an insect intentionally. I too hate people who just kill insects because they are there. I mean, i could understand someone killing a bee (I won't... i actually petted one once ) but why care about the three ants that happened to walk in your kitchen? and they spend fortunes to do so too!

 

Me, insects bigger than 2 inches scare me though. in Haiti, cockroaches are that big, and I became terrified when i found out they could fly! This was about the same time that I found a mygale (sp?) in my room, which prompted me to use another room for about a month until we found it dead later on. even the big butterflies scare me...

[Phi for All]

even the big butterflies scare me...

If I can see it's wings flap it doesn't scare me, but the really fast winged ones that buzz give me the heebie-jeebies. I saw a bumblebee once as big as my thumb that flew a foot in front of my face and sounded like an RC plane. That's the type of fear that strips you of bladder control.

[Mokele]

IMM would've passed out from fright had she been in the areas of Brood X of cicadas a few years back.

 

Actually, I was here in Cinci when that happened. It was so damn cool! There were just *billions* of them, everywhere. You could find dozens on a single small tree branch. After a while, you just got used to the noise, too. My lizard loved them, but sadly I didn't have any carnivorous plants at the time.

 

Oh, speaking of scary numbers of bugs, check this out:

Mayfly hatch caught on weather radar

 

Yes, it's a swarm of bugs so big it shows up on weather radar.

 

Mokele

[bascule]

I used to wear sandals all the time to the place I used to work. My boss told me that about 10 years ago, someone got bitten by a brown recluse and had to go to the hospital, and almost lost his finger. Then one time, I'm in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, and up crawls a little brown recluse friend, fiddleback and all, inches from my toe. Fortunately, my first instinct was smashy smashy.

[GutZ]

I used to wear sandals all the time to the place I used to work. My boss told me that about 10 years ago, someone got bitten by a brown recluse and had to go to the hospital, and almost lost his finger. Then one time, [b']I'm in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, and up crawls a little brown recluse friend, fiddleback and all, inches from my toe. Fortunately, my first instinct was smashy smashy.[/b]

 

 

Bascule 1 Nature 0

[why?]

I'm the worst carnivore there is and I won't kill an insect intentionally. I too hate people who just kill insects because they are there. I mean' date=' i could understand someone killing a bee (I won't... i actually petted one once ) but why care about the three ants that happened to walk in your kitchen? and they spend fortunes to do so too!

 

Me, insects bigger than 2 inches scare me though. in Haiti, cockroaches are that big, and I became terrified when i found out they could fly! This was about the same time that I found a mygale (sp?) in my room, which prompted me to use another room for about a month until we found it dead later on. even the big butterflies scare me...[/quote']

 

Cockroaches suck. Cockroaches that can fly freak you out. I think I was 6 or 7 in london and in was an autumn evening. Maybe not autumn but sure was an evening. Well anyway my friends and I ( note the proper use of language, ) were playing tennis outside when this swarm of flying cockroaches ( not sure but i think they wer cockroaches ) literally attacked us. We held the resistance for some tim smacking them as hard as we could, but I guess numbers won. We had to retreat to the safety of our house.

Lesson to be learnt: Never fight flying cockroaches.

 

And you can find so many cockroaches in NY. OMG I never though they would be so many here. They creep me out. Spider and bees are next. Moths are still ok, they seem harmless.