I interned in Everglades National Park for a few months while I was in college. My second day, first day in the field, my boss waded right into the shallow water like it was nothing, so I walked in right after him. Within 200 feet I had stepped on the tail of submerged gator. The gator splashed off, but its movement pulled my foot out from under me, and I fell on my butt in 3 feet of water. My boss thought this was very amusing, said this happened fairly often.
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if thatās supposed to be an emoji itās not working for me
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My most scary experience with a creature has to be on a game drive in a game reserve in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
In this region, there are lots of grassland-topped hills with forested valleys. In the reserve, there are a few jeep trails that run in and out of these valleys. During one early morning drive, we went down one such trail and at the bottom encountered a lone male elephant.
This elephant took notice of us and came in for a closer inspection. Awesome, right? I certainly thought so at first. Then I noticed there seemed to be something a little different with this elephant. Compared with the elephants in Addo which is relatively not too far away, this one seemed to have an uneasy air about him. He flared his enormous ears a bit, assessing the vehicle and blocking our way forward. I noticed then that he had a wet mark on the side of his face, and realised ā¦ this bull might be in musth.
Then my eyes just about fell out of my head as he extended that trunk of his to smell the driver. He then dropped his trunk again, strode forward and walked around us, right next to the vehicle. He came around to the other side, the side I was on, and was so close that, had I been naive and stupid enough, I could have reached out and touched the side of his face and body as he walked past. I donāt think I will forget the amber colour of his eye as he looked us over. There was no warmth in that eye, just dispassionate curiousity.
As he ambled past beyond the vehicle, the driver restarted the engine and tried to reverse. The elephant tossed his head and turned, picking up his speed to prevent us leaving by standing in the way behind us. The driver then tried to move forward instead, but because of the difficult terrain of the valley it wasnāt as simple as just pulling away - there was a curve to be navigated first. The elephant didnāt want us to leave his sight and blocked our way again.
There seemed to be a tense few minutes, before the elephant decided we were not going to move and then turned to begin browsing on the nearby tree/bush. As soon as the vehicle started moving again, the elephant stopped and tried to block us again. We had to wait until the elephant decided that we were going to stay where we were, and was well into the thick vegetation before we could zip away to safety.
Maybe the elephant was having fun at our expense, maybe he was potentially addled by hormones, maybe he just wanted to keep us where he could see us. But I was genuinely worried about the unpredictability of this elephant and how easily he could have flipped the vehicle over if he wanted and there would be nothing we could do about it.
I gained a newfound respect for elephants and I admit, for quite some time afterwards - some fear of them. They are absolutely amazing creatures and should not be trifled with.
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We were on safari in Botswana ar Sebuti camp. We drove down into a wide dry river bed which had a water hole with a corral used as a blind. We sidled to the blind and slivered out of our open rover and over the wall of the wall of the corrala and observed various mammals all come to the water with not interacting besides camera shooting. After having our fill, we crawled
back in our topless Land Rover and exiting the
River floor. As we we gatherig ourselves at the river bank, a large bull elephant came out thr forest and did a false rush at us. He then proceeded to rush our vehicle and engage it wth his tusks and was in the process of rolling the the vehicle over.with his tusks. Our guide had us bail on the side away from the elephant. My 14 old son rolled away from the vehicle keeping the elephant on the other side of the vehicle. Our guide was driving, right hand drive and the elephant pursued him ramming the vehicle and slashing his shirt wth his tusks. The guide tried fending him of with his ride unsussessfully. It then escated to the point where our guide was forced to shot. A single shot made the elephant back off, but the engagement wasnāt over. The elephant remained aggressive and a coup degrade had to be administered to the beast. Beast was autopsied ant it was found to have a parasitic infection in the brain.we were all shaken by the danger and felt badly about killing a creature we came to see.
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My most harrowing experiences with organisms have been with humans. Not nearly as bad as they might have been, but theyāve left emotional scars.
For a while I worked in one fenced office area and lived in a fence compound a few miles away. There I was usually the only person present at night. One evening, I worked late. Everyone else had left at least a couple hours before. I drove to the gate, opened it, drove through, closed and locked it. Drove toward the compound. Felt a gentle touch on my neck. Surely not! There it was again. Then again! What to do? Keep driving carefully. Do NOT open the gate to the compound where I would be locked in alone with whoever this was. I pulled off the road and slowly, very slowly, turned to face the interloper.
He was a cat Iād befriended in the work area. Apparently heād hopped into the car while I was working the gate. AAAGH but relief. I drove him back where he belonged and set out again.
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Not an organism experience, but you reminded me of when I was walking through a saltmarsh with ankle deep water with my class in college. We were warned of surprise holes. They are small in diameter and not visible since the grass forms a mat that bridges the gap. Several people can walk ahead of you and miss it in their steps. Most are around knee deep, but sometimes you find a really deep one. I was one of those people. It was so deep that water reached halfway up my chest (Iām 5ā6"). It took a few people to pull me out.
PS Well I guess the saltmarsh cordgrass Sporobolus alterniflorus (or Spartina alterniflora as it was know back then) hiding the hole makes it an experience with an organism
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Getting stuck and having to have help getting out of a stream; sank up to my knees in mud and couldnāt move. Wound up losing those sandals. Thankfully I wasnāt by myself; getting me out involved rope, and boards. Organism related because we were looking for turtles. No turtles but I got leeches though!
Coming out of the bathroom at Caprock Canyon State Park with my toddlers in tow after a diaper changeā¦to find out the bison had come into the picnic area while we were inside. One of them was rubbing itās side on the building almost close enough to touch. My then-two year old wanted to pet itā¦after getting him back inside the bathroom I had to explain that wasnāt a good idea. Terrified me.
When I was a kid, I had a raccoon get into my bedroom through an open window; I didnāt know anything was going on buy our dog went ballistic and charged in thereā¦I was busy trying to hold him back to keep him safe.
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I was on a weekās guard duty on a minuscule base in the middle of the desert. There were a total of eight people stationed there at the time. During guard duty, you were alone, and off duty, most people slept.
A few days in, I got a mysterious, searingly painful rash all over my hands and neck. I still have no idea what caused it, but in any case, I was taking a hot shower to try and relieve some of the pain. Of course, the āshowerā was an open pipe sticking out of the wall, with no curtain ā we decided that whoever was showering was to lock the bathroom door so nobody would accidentally walk in.
It is night. I am alone in a locked room, my uniform and gun meters away on the other side of the room. And I spot a something, a quite large something, skitter very, very quickly past my feet. It had too many legs, was thrashing its too-long claws towards me, and was completely alien to my knowledge (then).
Now, I quite like arachnids. Iāll hold spiders sometimes. But under these conditions, I went into full adrenaline rush. If I hadnāt been trained to react calmly under duress I would probably have screamed.
I froze for a little bit. Probably one or two minutes in reality, but it dragged on. I did manage to take a long look at it while my heart stopped racing.
I was able to determine it was not a scorpion ā no stinger. Relief. But what to do?
There was a mop nearby. I slowly, very slowly, took it, and carefully nudged the thing. It skittered about ten centimeters away and froze. Repeat, many times, until I had manouvered it into the corner furthest from the door. Open the door. Nudge it, slowly, a few more times until it ran away.
Later, I figured out that it was some sort of Tailless Whipscorpion ā it looked something between this and this, except with astonishingly beautiful cream and ochre stripes.
After it was all over, I was frozen by the exposure to the freezing desert night, still undressed, adrenaline pumping, and puzzled. While Iād forgotten about the rash in the excitement, by the time I was in bed its itching had returned. I did not sleep well that night.
I do regret not having taken any photos, but this was a few years āpre-iNatā and Iād never heard of such a creature. I certainly didnāt know that theyāre harmless. Nowadays, I would probably do an hour-long photoshoot and upload it immediately.
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Wow. All these stories, and yet ā maybe someone mentioned malaria, but other than that, mine is the only one involving a MICRO-organism.
Malaria mention here ā¦ https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/most-harrowing-experience-s-ever-with-organisms/19252/10?u=pmeisenheimer . I should add that I also had some all too memorable encounters with E. coli, although nothing that involved a week in hospital. I donāt recommend either experience, although Iāve always got lots of graphic story material with which to horrify tedious people at parties when I want to be left alone.
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Like a horror movie 
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Nothing all that harrowing, certainly nothing involving angry elephants. Years ago while checking out a variety of raptor nests in the Nevada springtime, I was hiking up a talus slope to access a site. In the talus were some shrubs growing up through the rocks. As I worked my way up I began to encounter rattlesnakes, the most disconcerting thing about it being that a few were up in the shrubs, which put them about knee-high. At the worst of it I considered going back down but by then I was at the half-way point, so I just kept working my way up and eventually got out of the area occupied by the snakes, but it was very slow, careful going for awhile. Another time, working in Washington and sleeping out under the stars, I awoke due to discomfort in my arm, to discover that I was bleeding from two small slit-like marks on my arm. I remember at the time, as I tried to make sense of it with a flashlight, that it looked like an anti-coagulant had been injected with the bite, was a surprising amount of blood from such small incisions. Went back to sleep, worked the week out, and then when no one could determine for sure what caused the bite (and to me the small cuts lined up well with the incisors of a bat) I ended up receiving post-exposure rabies vaccinations as a precaution.
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Bluff charged by female coastal Brown Bear south of Valdez Alaska. I was working for Cordova Ranger District of the USFS and myself and 2 colleagues were walking a river delta when we came up on a sow relatively suddenly who was in one of the cuts. Believe me when that massive head popped up out of the cut vocalizing, it scared the ever living crap out of me and Iām sure the others. She lead her cubs up on the rise away from us - vocalizing the whole time as we backed towards the stream cut behind us - she ran parallel to stream bed and went into the cut she had come out of and onto a rise closer to us - well that was that we clambered down into the cut behind us and could hear her roaring and moving - towards away we couldnt tell - but we held down in the cut for what seemed like minutes probably just seconds most definitiely expecting her to appear on top of rise above us - Fortuneatly she never did - yikes! You know USFS sends us out with a shotgun and a rifle for those situations - glad we didnt have to use it because we were in her territory and she was just doing what was natural to protect her cubs. What doesnt kill you makes you stronger!
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Nope, just nope.
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Ah yes, when a scientist looks at a species, and just canāt decide what name would be adequately terrifying.
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I grew up in Scotland, and apart from the infamous Scottish midges I was never exposed to anything dangerous or poisonous.
I moved to the Middle East in the mid-80s and started diving, mainly in the Red Sea off the Saudi coast. Rarely saw anything that was I many way dangerous, sharks were distant and the most poisonous creatures were really scorpionfish and stonefish, but they donāt really attack despite their nasty reputation.
Then I discovered the Titan Triggerfish, Balistoides viridescens, and quickly learned to stay clear of them when one of them launched itself at one of my buddies, who took a hit in the chest leaving a nasty bruise.
But the most aggressive fish Iāve had a few nips from is the common anemone fish (aka Nemoās Red Sea cousin Amphiprion bicintus) For such a small fish I advise wearing gloves when getting close to their locale to photograph them.
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Always tuck long pants into your socks when out in the field. If you donāt, your pant cuff might just scoop up a bumble bee, which will then crawl up the inside of the pant leg, get trapped at your crotch, and demonstrate its annoyance by stinging you multiple times in the pills. You will immediately drop the $300 worth of soil sampling gear you were carrying, and seriously aggravate your discomfort as you try to crush the critter. This will be followed by at least a couple of days of severe and highly localized itchiness, along with a surplus of off-color commentary from co-workers. Thankfully, it has only happened to me once in 30+ yrs of field work.
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Iāve actually had a similar case. I used to be the child who would trample around through anything the undergrowth could throw at me, but just this year, when I was cleaning up some trash near my house, I went into what Iām guessing was a poison oak patch, and I can honestly say it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Between the residue which spread to pretty much every part of my body before I realized the problem to me screaming over the phone at my dad, because of the three extra hours I had to wait for any medicine (The first and second medicines never worked, because by the time I got them, the reaction had already gotten too serious), because he didnāt want to spend forty dollars. The best comparison I can give to the level of stress is that itching was around the same level of discomfort as the panic attacks that Iāve had, and in general, a very unpleasant experience.
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Happened not to me, but my relative, he fell in a patch of Sosnowskyās hogweed, had a huge born on all of his right leg, it looked awful, thankfully I only got only small spots of burns, though e.g. one brown 1sm spot stayed for 6 months, so having a full leg like that I canāt imagine living through it.
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