Oh boy do I have a good one for this, and it was definitely in large part due to my own stupidity. When I was visiting Custer State Park, I was walking up along a ridge, and I found a bison heard. Instead of ducking for the trees (the smart choice in such a situation), I decided to stay nearby for photo taking possibilities. I luckily did not get stampeded, but I easily could have because in retrospect, they were quite agitated at my presence. Moral of the story, take the National Parks Service seriously, and donāt mess with the fluffy murder cows.
8 Likes
Not very dangerous bur velvet swimming crabs can draw a surprising amount of blood when youāre rockpooling and they have extremely quick reflexes. One of the reasons I stopped sticking my hand in cracks in rocks to look for any small crustaceans at the Beach.
5 Likes
I nearly tripped over this little fella, who slithered away in a hurry and tucked itself under a sage bush. I knew it was a snake, but didnāt realize what kind until I zoomed in on the photos on my cameraās display. (The pix make it look like I was right on top of it, but I was a pretty safe 6ā8 feet away.)
Really, though, the only threats Iāve ever worried about were posed by nearby Homo sapiens.
5 Likes
I have gotten attacked by ants I was observing (sometimes it was unexpected, others I wanted to see what it was like) but most of that wasnāt too dangerous, but I do think I can recall a certain Anochetus ghilianii worker leaving part of my hand numb for some time.
Aside from that, I have definitely had to be careful taking photos of ants while on roads without pathways with cars; and I did come across once with someone at a distance who was hunting, I doubt they would be so careless as to shoot me, but I still decided to go another way just to be out from there.
4 Likes
https://uk.inaturalist.org/observations/172160233
Tellima grandiflora. A patch randomly popped up in my garden a few years ago. Makes a beautiful dried cut flower. Pinkish flowers. Looked it up and itās native to the American Pacific North Westā¦ whatās it doing in my garden in Scotlandā¦? anywayā¦ I love it. Then a couple weeks later Iām down at my peaceful river spot and imagine my delight when I see it growing down-river. So I scramble over there and get the snap, but now where am I? Too far forward to go back, I keep going that way. Never been this way before. Iām scrambling over fallen branches, dirty, slippy and messy stones and just a very muddy and steep bank. I finally hit flat land but Iām now at some houses, against someoneās back fence (no gate) and brambles all around me. Well, gotta jump the fence and hope nobodyās home. So I do and I make it. But that whole ordeal was really stupid of me. Ah, well at least it got RGādā¦
7 Likes
Was doing field work in Bolivia and the crew called me over to look at some ātarantulasā theyād found. They clearly werenāt tarantulas, but they were really big spiders. Took some photos and shooed the spiders off the trail with a big stick so they didnāt get squished. ID came back - Brazilian wandering spiders. Fun. Apparently they are less aggressive than commonly believed and these didnāt even do a threat display at us, but itās a little unnerving to think I didnāt recognize them on sight.
4 Likes
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/197631715
My āmost dangerousā observation is probably this one - a random fungi.
Whilst exploring a forest looking for new fungi/myxo species that I hadnāt ran into, I lost my footing and slid about 5-6m down a pretty steep, muddy hill. Fortunately, I didnāt crash into anything, catch myself on anything, or wound anything more than my pride, and I then found this cool Exidia right next to where Iād landed.
5 Likes
I have almost stepped on various venomous snakes many times. Luckily so far (knock on wood) they have either moved out of the way or I have seen them before taking those last couple steps that would have landed me on top of them and gone around.
3 Likes
I think by far the most hazardous aspect of iNaturalist is getting too close to an edge or too far out on a limb. Be careful out there!
5 Likes
Iād propose this roadside Creeping Comfrey - a quiet road admittedly with flat grass bits to walk on (where the Comfrey wasnāt in the way). But I wouldāve still appreciated a pavement - and so would others judging by the deeply grooved path in the grass down the road.
Yeah, a pavement suddenly ending suddenly (it had a tunnel dug under a main road to it, so god knows why they didnāt bother joining the other side) probably isnāt as exciting, but itās probably more dangerous than some of the examples so far!
2 Likes
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165788518
Megachile mucida that was (understandably) pissed off when I caught her. She stung me when I was getting her out of the net. I got minor pulsing pain for about five minutes. Definitely worth it, for such an uncommon bee in my area.
8 Likes
Adding to the sting stories. I accidentally stepped on a yellow jacket nest. 200+ stings.
6 Likes
The only problems Iāve ever had are trying to take pictures between the waves coming up on the beach. I am very much what can be called a scaredy cat about a lot of things, but it does sometimes work in my favour, looking at all the bee stung people here, haha.
2 Likes
My worst was probably climbing ~35 ft. up an old, dead tree just to take some photos of lichens and mushrooms
5 Likes
I had a gun pulled on me while doing a bird survey on a public road. And a Bald Faced Hornet got me and some of my sandwich. I was footed by an American Goshawk while doing banding as with other minor scratches while bandingā¦
7 Likes
This observation of a Cape Buffalo https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/115480678 was made long before iNat came into existence but was quite scary at the time. Since then Iāve had many bites, stings, scratches and falls but nothing significant.
6 Likes
This little rove beetle drew quite a lot of blood, was super surprising! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193086360
And this big ol iguana ran from across the beach straight at me, jumped and nipped my finger for no apparent reasonā¦
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/171851292
6 Likes
My worst experience happened three times when I was photographing birds in my country, Brazil. I was āinvadedā by dozens of tick nymphs, which are much worse than the ticks themselves. Since I am allergic to their bites, it took me several weeks to be cured. And I had also to deal with my wifeās bad temper, worried that the ticks might migrate to our dogs, which fortunately didnāt happen.
6 Likes
Probably would have gotten a better photo of this underwater insect: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/55105024 but for the fact that it suddenly took a bite (or something similar that took my mind off photography). No danger that I know of, but a whole lotta surprise.
3 Likes
After taking some photos of moths around a tunnel on the edge of town the inside of my right arm started feeling itchy followed by a burning sensation, then raised red marks appeared similar to what I would imagine from a jellyfish sting. Lasted a few days but, fortunately, mosquito bite ointment helped dull the pain:
I went back later to take photos of the plant I thought might have caused it. Turns out I took photos of two different plants and neither cause that kind of reaction. Best guess was that I had inadvertently brushed up against something like a tussock moth caterpillar on one of the plants.
Have mentioned this one on the forums before, but I saw an Asian moccasin (genus Gloydius) cross a hiking path used by a lot of families with children and sit inside a bush. Spent a bit of time hanging out next to the bush to warn anyone that might come too close or start poking around should they see any movement from the snake inside.
I also snapped a few photos and got a little too close for this one, as the moccasin lunged at me:
There was also the time I let an assassin bug crawl onto my hand and it bit me, which resulted in a sharp pinching feeling that I could have done without.
9 Likes