I would have to say that it was my life-and-death struggle with an African Escherichia coli. I was in hospital for a week.
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A hornet once chased me and made me fall down a hillā¦
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Chase by Indian Elephants are a constant dangers in forests I have went to. I was not chased but I know many people who were chased be elephants. During 2018, in a bird survey in Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala, India my team was blocked by an elephant. We didnāt see them but forest watchers have known their presence by the sound of breaking canes. So we went back. This was my first experience with wild elephants(This was also my first bird survey in a forest). During 2019, in a survey of Kerala Bird Atlas in Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, Kerala, India we had many instances of elephants blocking our path(all were herds with calf and we saw them). We had to run to our boats back by the reservoir. Elephants are the greatest threats in the forests of Kerala because even though they are large they can easily hide and stay unnoticed and may charge when we approach. They can sense us from far away. The best way to know their presence is to be alert to the sound of breaking canes and the smell of their fresh dung.
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During a photo hike trip to a waterfall in Philippines, I was looking up trees to look for subjects, and felt something drops on my face under the eyes. I quickly tried to wipe it off my face but felt something ācrawlingā. I quickly asked my friend to take a look and it was a leech! Before he could grab it off my face, the leech had crawled into my left eye. Not knowing how dangerous this could be (leech in the eye), I asked my friend to help me take it out, which naturally was difficult with fingers since the leech is very slimy and slippery.
Fortunately, I remembered that I had cotton buds and sanitising alcohol in my backpack, so I asked my friend to dap the cotton bud with alcohol to āstingā the leech, hoping it will āreleaseā its hold on the surface in order to be able to removes it. Fortunately, after like 10 minutes, my friend managed to get hold of leech.
It was painful, due to the sting from the leech. By the time we got out of the trail, my eyes were swollen badly. The swelling lasted for 5 days, fortunately, there were no serious long term effect.
Now I have a phobia of leeches!
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These stories are great! Iāve gasped and/or laughed through each of them.
I donāt have many, and in most of them the animal wasnāt aggressive, but they were harrowing anyway!
Once I was walking with my husband in Western Australia in the middle of nowhere when out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement by his foot. I grabbed him towards me and out shot a highly venomous tiger snake! He almost needed new underwear, whereas I was disappointed I didnāt get a better look.
In another Western Australian incident, my stepdaughter who was about 8 at the time came to tell me of a snake she and her friends had found under a rock. They had all be checking it out for a while. When I investigated it turned out to be another highly venomous snake, a dugite (see here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1495143). It appeared while the kids where scrambling over the rocks checking it out the rock moved and crushed it to death.
I once put my foot in a fire ant nest in Hawaiāi, have been (playfully) charged by a New Zealand sea lion bull, and bitten by a moray eel in New Caledonia (the last was my fault entirely - I put my hand right outside its hole without thinking).
But the one I found hardest to forget and made me the most nervous (excluding all human related incidents) was the one that appeared to anyone watching a non-event. In fact it was a non-event, however I was only centimetres away from a truly terrible time. I was standing barefoot in knee-deep water in French Polynesia and noticed a flash of red. On closer inspection I had put my foot right next to a highly camouflaged stonefish 
The red was on its pectoral fins when it moved slightly, but when it wasnāt moving it looked for all the world like a lump of dead coral (see here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36086399, and only a few days earlier Iād seen another stonefish https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36314981).
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Yeah. I forgot tell about the leeches. Here in the forests of Kerala leeches are everywhere especially during the wet season. You canāt even step your foot on the ground and it is sure to get stung by a leech when you enter. Theyāve stung me on many places but mostly legs. Theyāve even got under my dress and neck. Each time itās a different feeling. At first it feels as if semething wet and cool is placed on our body and then itās like a syringe.
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Same here! I was bitten twice, once when cleaning a fish out in a rockpool- it was worth it to discover an amazing new species I was unaware of!
The other was a few weeks later, when luring one out for a better photo I didnāt see the second one underneath the rock I was on (they are more common than you may think).
Sad to hear you had a frightening incident with such a beautiful species. They are generally very docile unless stepped on. Hope the ālocalsā here didnāt scare you away for good!
Curious kangaroos following me in the bush in the dead of night would be one of my most harrowing experiences, along with stepping on a snake and seeing sharks while snorkelling- the raw power is amazingā¦
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Strangely, but my worst and most frightening experience with animals was with Toque Macaque in Polonaruwa, Sri Lanka. Macaques in that place are used to people feeding them so they come close. I went to a lotus pond to make a photo and did not look around much so did not notice that a monkey was following me, apparently waiting to get some food. I stepped backwards for a better view and directly onto the tail of the animal. There was a screech, the monkey hit my ankle with a paw, leaving four long scratches and,what was worse, stood in front of me in a threatening pose, baring its teeth. As it was mature male with very serious fangs and I knew about the the other consequences of macaque bite, I was really frightened. Thankfully, as I stood still, quietly speaking to the animal, it finally went away without any further action. When I went back to the car, local guide almost had a fit, seeing my ankle, but calmed down after learning that it was not a bite. So everything ended not so bad as it could. Do not ever, anywhere feed wild animals!
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Yeah macaques are a great nuisance as the snatch things from people and will attack mostly in North India. I havenāt experienced myself.
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Ticks are always a nuisance, last spring a four hour walk in the veld led to 14 ticks in my right shoe alone. I picked the last one off me two days later after feeling a sharp pinch on my thighā¦ There was also a situation where myself and ten other fieldmates were chased up a tree by a black rhino. Luckily it was an adolescent male, I was told that if it had been a female with her young it could have ended up quite ugly.
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Ha. I once hit a hornet nest on accident with a bait net trying to catch a grasshopper. Once I noticed my grave error, I high-tailed it out of there and as far as I could go - passing a bicycler. He mustāve seen the terror because he started pedaling at high speeds.
Another time I saw a huuuuge tarantula hawk wasp on the ground. I slowly took a few steps back to get a shot (had my telephoto lens with me), and it hopped up and flew directly at me. I spontaneously channeled my inner Usain Bolt somehow. Itās amazing how fast you can run when youāre being chased by the physical manifestation of pure pain.
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Actually, Iād forgotten about being stalked by two dingoes on Fraser Island! I think they were just curious, but it was quite unnerving.
Kangaroos can be quite intimidating- they certainly look big and strong close up. I wouldnāt like being followed by them either!
Sorry to hear you were bitten by a moray too - they have teeth like razor blades!
The tiger snake was very close to being stepped on, which surprised me because we were talking loudly and stomping along. I loved Australia for the fact you could see amazing animals almost anytime, anywhere. New Zealand feels far less surprising! We lived in Perth for about a year and I never got tired of nature walks. I bet youāve seen some amazing things.
Sharks are certainly incredible. Just a tiny flick of their tail can send them shooting forward with ease. We went on an incredible dive in Fakarava, French Polynesia. Hundreds upon hundreds of sharks, and several species. It was just amazing. Iād seen the odd shark before, but never in such numbers! I thought Iād feel a little nervous, but I didnāt feel that at all. It was very peaceful, and quite beautiful to see.
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Once I was camped on a beach and in the middle of the night I awoke to the sound of a large mammal growling. In my half-asleep brain, I couldnāt understand what it was. Strange, I thought, bears and cougar are usually not aggressive, but what else could it be? Gathering my courage I shot a beam of light onto the beach. Oh ho, a giant bull elephant seal was growling and approaching. However once the light hit it, it veered off and made a different line. Unwittingly and foolishly I was in the dudeās parking spot. The next morning he was chilling down the beach, paying me no mind. I always give all marine mammals a wide berth, because I sincerely believe getting at all close constitutes harassment. Although camping was allowed at the location I was in, I mis-read the signs, and I was supposed to be behind the creek that drained to the ocean and not in front of it.
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Great stories here.
The incident that comes to mind for me was many years ago when I was transporting a 5-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake from the field to my lab and I kept it in my apartment overnight in a rather inadequate box. Next morning, before Iād even dressed, I checked on it and thinking it was cool and calm, opened the container a little too wide. The snake wasnāt cool or calm and before I knew it it was loose, crawling fast and striking, and buzzing like a busted steampipe in my tiny living room ā¦ so loud my neighbors must have heard it. Eventually I got it back in the box (while still in my underwear).
I wasnāt too bright back then and never again was that cavalier with venomous snakes.
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Ouch! Sounds a lot worse than when I slipped while trying to collect a sea anemone and sliced my finger on the oyster reef it was attached to. Worst part was trying to eat the heavily seasoned fresh-caught boiled shrimp for dinner. We were out at a camp and there wasnāt really anything else available to eat.
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Iāve had a young feral water buffalo charge me while I was looking for insects with a torch in the Northern Territory, but it veered away at the last second, or was possibly dazzled by the light beam.
But humans cause the most drama. Iāve had one stumbling, drooling, drugged out guy, wearing nothing but his briefs, stagger out of a campsite and follow me for about 15 minutes along a trail while loudly sexually propositioning me, but he was obviously too out of it to move faster than a shuffle. Another time I heard and saw a vehicle with illegal hunters come towards me on the track at night using spotlights to scan the undergrowth for animals. I LOUDLY and VERY EXCITEDLY YELLED about KATYDIDS OH SO EXCITING KATYDIDS KATYDIDS EVERYWHERE ALL AROUND ME and put on a brilliant personal light show using both torches and my phone, and thankfully they withdraw into the vehicle, hid their guns and put the windows up, and drove quickly past.
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Iāve done that so many times growing up (in Louisiana) that it seems almost normal. Really bad was when I was maybe 10 years old and crawling under a boat trailer to retrieve something that had rolled under it and ended up crawling through a fire ant nest. Being under the boat there was no fast escape and they were all over me since I was on my hands and knees. I couldnāt think of a harrowing experience with non-human animals earlier but I think that fire ant encounter qualifies.
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Oh no! I couldnāt think of that as being normal. They must breed tough kids in Louisiana!
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Wow, romantic! It sounds comical, but I know how threatening that is.
The only time I felt happy to be young, female and of non-intimidating appearance I was walking around a campsite with my headtorch in Australia. I must have lurked near one tent a bit too long and a guy came flying out demanding to know what I was doing (probably fair enough). He didnāt believe ālooking for geckosā was a very convincing answer, but luckily I didnāt look like a threat.
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I am loving these stories! I am fortunate to have not had anything that really compares to most of these. I did work as an archaeologist some time ago, and when I was based in the mid-Atlantic area it was a slog in the summertime: hot, humid, trying to maintain precise measurments between test pits while machete-ing your way through thick tangles of smilax and rubus. We all knew poison ivy, but you couldnāt avoid it. Even if you somehow managed to dodge the leaves you had to dig through the roots, and although the discovery of technu was a godsend, we still almost all had rashes throughout the summer. Then I moved to California. I stepped out into my first project - in the desert! I love the desert! No humidity! No thick tangles to machete through! You can pretty much lay the reel tape along the ground without interference! This was going to be the best.
Then I set my backpack down on a fire ant nest and knelt down on dried-up cholla that was hidden in the sand, imbedding the spines in my knee.
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