Hi! I’m new to inat so you guys probably don’t know me very much but I’m very much excited to be here. I guess you can describe me as a bug-enthusiast (I hope I spelled it right). I love grasshoppers especially but I’ve also kept injured butterflies, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, roly-polys, beetles, ants, and my sister kept a jumping spider. But anyway I wanted to share a funny story that happened to me recently…
My parents and I were looking at a rental and I found a cricket in the basement and I was super excited because I hadn’t seen any bugs in months (since it’s winter where I’m at )and long story short I wanted to keep it. So I was trying to pry this freezing cricket off the wall when it jumped next to my sneaker and crawled up my pants… I had to slide into an empty room and take off my pants to try to shake this cricket out of them all while my parents were chatting with the rental owner like nothing had happened.
So yeah, eventually I got it out and my parents convinced me to leave it in the basement.
I once got a frog jumping on me, when I was a kid. Also, once, I remember, got a big wolf spider climb on me and get into my shirt. When I was a teenager, I got what I now know was a lichen mantis, jump on me. I was climbing a tree, and that crazy critter crawled on me. I used to believe mantises are slow. That one was not.
I also once got a roach climb on me. It was in a film photography lab. The roach was discovered, and then I appeared, trying to kill it in very weird ways. It was all dark, so I couldn’t see much, but I could see a spot moving around. I suddenly lost track of it and started suspecting it had climbed on me. I shook my clothes and, indeed, it fell back. I managed to kill it, at last.
When I was younger I also remember trying to use some old mulch from a trash can for my garden and the mulch was filled with ants and somehow they got all over me-I was like covered in (thankfully! ) black ants. My older cousin was nearby and she ran up and started brushing me off. I guess I disrupted a nest of them or something.
Welcome to iNaturalist, Carmen! :D
One time, I went to walk on a trail with my dad. The sun was setting and somehow we ended up getting lost, which is really confusing, because we’ve walked this particular trail many times. We came to a clearing and saw a road ahead of us which meant we were really far away, and we would have a really long way to go back to where we started. Unfortunately, we forgot bug spray and there was this unbelievable amount of mosquitoes everywhere. They kept landing on us and we had to run so they wouldn’t land on us. We ran for a long time. I got three mosquito bites which is surprising that I didn’t get more. One on my leg was the size of a quarter because I wore shorts. During the time it was annoying that the mosquitoes kept coming but looking back it’s kind of funny that we actually ran from the mosquitoes and I even accidentally captured a video of my dad running and swatting them away. Good memories. I can’t wait for summer again.
When I lived in South Africa, I used to stay in a little granny flat / outbuilding as temporary student housing. It was nice and cozy, though occasionally had other animals share our space.
On one occasion a toad was found in my shoe, which I only found as I went to put the shoe on - I’d rather a toad than a scorpion or a snake!!! On another, the toad somehow managed to hop up onto the bed, and onto the face of my partner during the middle of the night.
We also had geckos that would roam the walls and ceilings in search of moths and bugs and other insects. I would sometimes watch them crawl around the ceiling above me at night-time. Sometimes they would get territorial and chase each other. One time a chase ended up with the smaller gecko losing its footing directly above me, falling down onto my check as I lay in my bed. He looked at me momentarily, a little embarrassed, then ran off.
In a final related story, we thought there was a break-in once from our kitchen. We could hear the blinds moving, and it was obviously not wind-related. Break-ins were not uncommon, so I bravely peaked round the corner to see … a gecko … eating a cockroach on the slats of the blinds.
That’s so funny yeah mosquitoes are annoying. One time I woke up in the morning to a bunch of mosquito bites all over my face and I could hear a noise between a buzz and a squeak in my ear. It was a mosquito .
I’ve got a recent one (if not a very long one). I was in a wooded public park a couple weeks ago, and I was flipping logs to see what kind of animals or fungi I could find. There was a fairly large log propped up slightly against the trunk of a tree along one of the walking paths. I pulled it up and a bunny came tearing out from underneath! Wasn’t expecting anything that big, so it gave me a bit of a startle! Still not sure how it managed to fit itself under there.
Equally, once I saw a tree in bloom infested with butterflies. I tried to climb it when I instantly started getting stinging ants all over me. But the worst of it, a few dared to go downstairs… and stung me there.
As a teen, I used to roam the island our Summer cottage was on. High hills made of bedrock with humid valleys in-between filled with spruce and some deciduous trees.The hills had an awesome view out to the open sea, and I used to hang out on top of them, take a nap occasionally, read a book. One time I was napping, I woke to this feeling of two cold spots on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see the chest and chin of a White Wagtail. It apparently noticed my eyes opening, as it looked down, and we had a second of straight eye-to-eye, before it fled into a nearby pine.
Another one was during the time I worked in the city park and greenery department. One of my jobs was to keep the waste water facility grounds clean. It was October, and I was going around with a leafblower. I noticed there was a small area between one of the buildings and the fence, maybe 2m wide, that was filled with leaves, so I went to clean them out. Suddenly I saw a half-rotten Brown Hare fly towards me and smack into my chest. I let out an involuntary scream out of fear.
After I calmed down and realized it wasn’t the day of the zombie hares, I examined the place, and there was a small depressin where the animal had obviously crawled to die. The air stream had struck the back of the depression, turned around, and thrown the carcass at me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of that face with empty sockets, and grinning teeth amidst torn skin flying at me. I’ve been having laughs telling this story for over 20 years now.
You have no need to worry. I am indeed taking care not to harm anything beneath logs or stones I turn, and I put them back the way I found them. If I find salamanders or other vertebrates underneath, I also typically remove them while I place the rock/log back, then place them where they can crawl back under to minimize risk of harm. The bunny did not want to go back under, though. It bolted to find a better hiding place.
That reminds me of a story my dad told us about cleaning leaves out of a shed. They had somehow become firmly packed into the motor compartment of the riding lawnmower. As he was cleaning them out, he was angrily reminded by the inhabitant that opossums have the most teeth of any American animal
When I was 11 years old I was with my parents and grandfather on a two-week holiday in Tanzania. (My grandfather wanted to see the big African wildlife.) Behind the hotel where we stayed was a compost heap and there lived some hyraxes. They were ± used to people and I fed one with a carrot. It nibbled at the carrot and when that was gone, just kept chewing and got my finger. I was so proud! :-)) and ran with my bleeding finger to my parents and announced I’m going to collect animal bites - as a proof for a real intimate encounter. - But what is there to collect? A scar? So I gave up on this idea. It never occurred to me like @tiwane to just make a list. I think I would have gotten quite a nice collection by now.
Greetings Cellodottone! Welcome to the forum. And great story! It reminds me of this one…
Years ago, we lived in a rented house situated on a fruit farm. The farmer had a wonderful, large barn cat that seemed more dog than cat. It would immediately come if you called it, and seemed to really enjoy being petted, learned tricks, etc.
Early one cool morning, the farmer arrived and went into the barn to get the tractor. That’s when he saw what he thought was the cat, sleeping, in a huddled position on the tractor seat. When he reached down and started to pet it, he ALSO learned the lesson about opossum teeth!
I had to slide into an empty room and take off my pants to try to shake this cricket out of them all while my parents were chatting with the rental owner like nothing had happened.
) black ants. My older cousin was nearby and she ran up and started brushing me off. I guess I disrupted a nest of them or something.
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