What animals have injured/stung/bitten you?

Oooooh! I am so sorry! Ouch! I hope it gets better fast.

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Thank you!

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Most recently, fire ants. See https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/79869727

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I have looked but I can not find where fire ants originally from, it seems that they have just spread every where.

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  The bites I have received have never been as impressive as those above, yet I will mention what was my most surprised “bite!” I was looking for dragonflies with my husband and we were walking towards where the lake runoff was piped underneath the dam to a smaller creek. On the edge were fairly large, light grey stones and I saw the distinct outline of a dragonfly from about 15 feet away. I motioned with my hand for my husband to stay back as I slowly walked forward with my net slightly to the left and just above grass level. This guy was huge and I knew I only had one chance to net him. My advantage was he was facing the creek and I was coming up from behind. A million things could have gone wrong: my net could get snared on brush or rocks, he could detect my approach and be gone in an instant, I could be way off estimating the distance to the dragonfly and the length of pole I had attached to my net or I could have easily missed. Easily! Estimating distance isn’t one of my best attributes. So I stood still, took a deep breath and swoosh! Twisting the handle to close the top of the net, I waited…then I heard the distinct sound of flapping wings against the netting! I yelled, “Rob, I got it! I can’t believe I caught it!” My husband asked me what it was and I said,”Huge!” I had an idea of the species and if I had caught a previous species I would have known for sure, yet it was a Dragonhunter! My favorite catch to date and the most memorable! I reached in the net carefully to fold all 4 wings over his back and slowly removed  him from the net. As I put my net on the ground and reached down to get an ‘envelope’, I felt a hard pinch on my finger tip! “Oh $@&#! The little bugger just bit me!” I have never been bitten by a dragonfly and some have attempted, yet none had drawn blood as this one did! 2 little pin pricks of blood on the tip of my finger and his jaws were still moving to get in another bite! No, dragonflies do not bite or sting, unless you’re holding them with a finger possibly close to their ‘teeth.’ Usually they can’t even puncture skin and others have tried, yet this guy had some jaw power! Well, it’s a story I now tell fairly often when I show people my insect collection. “I remember when I walked up….”

Will someone please fix my reply! I obviously didn’t do something correctly and my post came out as a “one-liner” - definitely not my intention. Remember, “I don’t do computers!” Arg! :woozy_face:

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I hope this works…

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Invertebrates: wasps, hornets, ticks, ladybugs, lacewing larvae, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, deerflies, horseflies

Vertebrates: bluegill, saltwater catfish, bullhead, anoles, rat snakes, garter snakes, water snakes, dogs

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Update. Got bitten by a dragonfly and a snake.
The dragonfly https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/85612850 and
the snake https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86519045

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Fireant, (juvenile) American Alligator, Galapagos tortoise, Ribbon snake, Yellowjacket, Golden retriever, Eastern hognose snake, and of course, Human.

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Hi @funkypotato welcome to the forum

Since siblings are a oft mentioned source of bites and stings i think the quote should actually be

“With great responsibility or great size comes great restraint”

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I am a bit terrified at seeing what all people have been bitten or stung by. And the fact that Humans beings are high up on the list of inflicting parties is even more worrisome.

Am surprised @earthknight did not mention being bitten by poachers, I had to check out the profile just to know what @earthknight was upto to cause such interactions.

And now have to carefully go through some of the other heroes here

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I don’t think you have to worry. People generally get what they ask for- hey, if you are wading about with no shirt through a leech infested swamp, you shouldn’t be surprised if you end up with blood loss😂
In my case, I was feeding an eel, and grabbed a snake, picked up the spiders and decided snorkelling was worth it, even with all the Portuguese men-of-war in the water…

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Sadly I got stung by a hornet when I rescued it from a pool.
It hurt

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You can post it with 2 photos, the first mostly masked, the second showing the observation in full. Explain what the photo is in the text. This makes sure that if someone is grossed out, they chose to be by scrolling to the second photo. (I definitely think you should post it.)

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I stepped on a bumblebee, decades ago. I still remember it well.

I’ve been bitten by the usual arthropods – mosquitoes, horsefly, ticks, chiggers. Northern Water Snakes, garter snakes, probably Fox Snake, but nothing poisonous. Working at a nature center, taking care of animals, I got bitten by an assortment of small mammals; the skunk left a scar that took years to disappear. Fortunately, hawks and Great Horned Owls can’t do as much damage with their beaks as they can with their feet. Siblings, of course (I have six of them). When I was checking nest boxes, an Eastern Bluebird kept landing on my head and pecking me, but only when I wasn’t looking at it.

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I’m been bitten and clawed by various cats, mostly out of love, ignorance, or, in my late diva cat’s case, being blind, deaf, and half Siamese.

I’ve mentioned my experience with disturbing a ground hornet nest while weeding, but i was pretty lucky until recently.

Apocephalus borealis have acquired a taste for honey bees this year in my area, so that means dealing with 2-4 zombified bees each night bumrushing the porch lights while I’m taking photos. They will fall to the ground half dead, then wake up and remember what was on their planner for tonight (‘attack porch lights’) and resume.

One of them flew upwards and got caught under my capris. They then stung my upper calf, and pretty much delivered their payload as I fumbled to get them out of my pants. I’ve been stung before by ‘zombees’, but the difference was night and day due to the location of the sting. Thankfully, I’m not allergic, so a day later, I was completely fine.

Tl;dr: zombiebee flew up into my pants and stung me, not allergic, developed no hankering for brains

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If your swimming hole was marine (?), what looked like an alga but stung you would have been a hydroid.

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Lol… the tick is gross, but I’m not sure the old lady belly isn’t worse.:persevere:

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