Deadly And Scary Animals

[Outlaw2747]

I went out to my car once (keys inside and ONLY the driver's side door open) I went to get in and one of those suckers came flying out. OMG I had NEVER seen anything like it. I ended up two hours late for work but was excused when I showed my boss what was after me. We caught it in a jar and showed it to the state bug guy. He said it was unusual for the area. the thing was bigger than a humming bird and had a stinger you wouldn't believe. To this day, if I leave my car unlocked, I leave ALL the doors unlocked LOL

That would be very scary. Luckily solitary wasps are very rarely hostile for they have no real reason to be. Social wasps are way more dangerous for obvious reasons. But I hear those velvet ants are pretty **** nasty and have one of the most painful stings ever. It is actually a female wingless species of predatory wasp (the males have wings). Here is the one that is not-so aptly named a cow-killer.

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[tizz]

Hey vortex you'll like this. (the beginning of a lifetime total and utter fear of spiders)

I decided one summer to do my mom a favor and totally clean out our garage. We had old doors on teh ground to make a floor. I decided that if I was gonna clean it better do it right. So I picked up one end of one of the doors to drag onto the yard when EEEP! are you ready........

About 500 wolf spiders came running out, over my feet and onto the lawn. OMG I **** near jumpt the 15 feet to the picnic table and started screaming ****** murder. I was about 11 at the time and just about every mother on teh block came running to the yard thinking I was being attacked. They very quickly saw what I was screaming my ****** head off about and joined me atop the table and joined into the most blood curdling chorus of screams ever to hit my little neighborhood. FINALLY one of the dads came out to investigate the horror and saved us all from a yard full of big nasty ugle scary viscious wolf spiders. He ran around like a mad man stomping on them. I think it was about 4 months before we could talk everyone into coming over for a BBQ. I still have nightmares about that day and will run faster that the Flash everytime I come across one of these evil buggers.

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[Outlaw2747]

Awwww, they are so cute!!!

 

[builder]

Hey builder, is teh sea wasp the same as a blue bottle?

No, the bluebottle stings like ****, but only for a half-hour or so, and the sea-wasp is submerged, whereas the blue-bottle floats on a bubble.

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[tizz]

I thought the blue bottle was deadly. I am so confuzzled. I would LOVE to visit Australia, but there are too many creepy crawlies that could kill ya

 

[Outlaw2747]

Yea me too. The Portuguese Man of War (as we usually know it) is probably more dangerous in the Atlantic as it is more numerous I believe. Builder is right about the fact it floats above water using a gas filled polyp. Most of them I have seen pictures of have like a purplish tint to them or are just clear. I'll have to look it up. It has been a while since I have read about Cnidarians.

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[builder]

I thought the blue bottle was deadly. I am so confuzzled. I would LOVE to visit Australia, but there are too many creepy crawlies that could kill ya

Honestly Tizzie, OZ is not so full of scary critters. Oh, except for crocs and great whites and blue-ringed octopii and.......

Blue bottles can be so prolific that after a north-east wind, the beach is so covered by them, that driving along the beach you hear nothing but popping sounds over the engine noise.

As a toddler, I had tentacles wrapped twice around my chest. My mum tried to rub them off with sand. Ouch. Vinegar, or "Stingose" works just fine.

As kids, the folks would take us oyster picking on the rock ledges on the coast. I found the most amazingly colourful little critter in a small rock-pool. It took me a good while to catch this critter, but I wandered over to mum, with the little critter in my hand, to show her.

Mum took one look and belted the underside of my hand, sending the little occy into the air. A few years later, the University of Queensland offered money for the supply of live blue-rings for anti-venom research. My family caught dozens of them.

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[tizz]

Cool looking fishj. I will have to show that one to my daughter. My stepfather spent alot of time in Australia researching ofr Wood's Hole Oceanagraphic Institute and has some good stories about strange things found in those waters (I wish now I had paid more attention or taped him or something. So many story and a wealth of information about our oceans will die with him)

 

[Outlaw2747]

Fish? That is a cephalopod. A mollusk to be more general. The blue-ringed octopus is actually considered the most dangerous octopus for its small and hamrless appearance and plus its beauty leads people to pick it up. I read it is not particularly aggressive but it is one of the few animals that injects tetrodotoxins through a bite (most are found inside of puffers, which you must consume them to be poisoned) with its beak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin That explains the nature of a tetrodotoxin. But the blue-ringed octopus is far from being the only deadly cephalopod. This is the one I would fear...

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[builder]

Giant squid still get washed up on shores around the globe. Last one's we had were on Tasmania's shores. Over fifty feet long, from memory.

Back in the days when whaling was popular here, scientists measured scars on sperm whales, who eat giant squid, by grabbing them and ramming them into the bottom several times. The sucker-pad scars they leave on the whale's head indicates there are still squid out there in the hundred-foot plus category.

Another beasty that is still common round here is the stonefish. I've come face to face while snorkelling. Scary critters, and deadly.

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[tizz]

My stepfather's boat caught a giant squid in teh 70's

 

[Outlaw2747]

Giant squid still get washed up on shores around the globe. Last one's we had were on Tasmania's shores. Over fifty feet long, from memory.
Back in the days when whaling was popular here, scientists measured scars on sperm whales, who eat giant squid, by grabbing them and ramming them into the bottom several times. The sucker-pad scars they leave on the whale's head indicates there are still squid out there in the hundred-foot plus category.

Another beasty that is still common round here is the stonefish. I've come face to face while snorkelling. Scary critters, and deadly.

I seen tons of pictures of stonefish, they are cousins to the lionfish and scorpionfish. They look EXACTLY like a stone and are said to have 13 spines on that back. How appropriate. I hope I never get to bump into those guys.

Giant squid has fascinated me for years. A giant cephalopod that has only two natural predators (that we know of so far), the sperm whale and the sleeper shark. The battles are quite legendary and a live fully grown one (except juvelines) has never been photographed alive. It would be quite scary to see one of these guys. The largest eyes in the world and one of the most intelligent invertebrates.

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But the squid pictured in the last post (I'll post it again.) and the one succeeding it are photos on one of the worlds most deadliest predators. The jumbo flying squid AKA the Humboldt Current Squid (the locals call it roja diablo) is one animal to fear. They can grow up to six feet long, can hunt in packs, and have huge suckers equipped with spines and a disproportionally large beak used to sever flesh. People have dived with these animals with no problems while other divers were said to felt like "a bar room brawl" and some even ended up as deadly. The scariest thing about them is how they will literally watch you before quickly striking and the fact they are nocturnal and grow different colors doesn't help either. Surprisingly, they are hunted for food as much smaller individuals are more common. Found in the Pacific from South America to as far north as Monterey Bay.

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[builder]

It would be freaky being mobbed by a bunch of big squidleys. The beak of one I found on Moreton Island was twice the size of sulphur-crested cockatoo.

 

[hugo]

These animals viciousness pales in comparison to the female **** sapien. They lure you into their presence with that hole between their legs and before you know it you are not just literally getting ******.

 

[Outlaw2747]

These animals viciousness pales in comparison to the female **** sapien. They lure you into their presence with that hole between their legs and before you know it you are not just literally getting ******.

Now THAT, I can definitely agree with.

Though many would consider the American breeds and hybrids as one of the most notorious.

 

[builder]

These animals viciousness pales in comparison to the female **** sapien. They lure you into their presence with that hole between their legs and before you know it you are not just literally getting ******.

Now that is probably the funniest thing I've read all week.

 

[Vortex]

Hey vortex you'll like this. (the beginning of a lifetime total and utter fear of spiders)
I decided one summer to do my mom a favor and totally clean out our garage. We had old doors on teh ground to make a floor. I decided that if I was gonna clean it better do it right. So I picked up one end of one of the doors to drag onto the yard when EEEP! are you ready........

About 500 wolf spiders came running out, over my feet and onto the lawn. OMG I **** near jumpt the 15 feet to the picnic table and started screaming ****** murder. I was about 11 at the time and just about every mother on teh block came running to the yard thinking I was being attacked. They very quickly saw what I was screaming my ****** head off about and joined me atop the table and joined into the most blood curdling chorus of screams ever to hit my little neighborhood. FINALLY one of the dads came out to investigate the horror and saved us all from a yard full of big nasty ugle scary viscious wolf spiders. He ran around like a mad man stomping on them. I think it was about 4 months before we could talk everyone into coming over for a BBQ. I still have nightmares about that day and will run faster that the Flash everytime I come across one of these evil buggers.

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Tizz i would have just crawled on the table and literally cried.......

Ughhh...now im freaking creeped out again!

 

[builder]

Tizz i would have just crawled on the table and literally cried.......
Ughhh...now im freaking creeped out again!

Aaaah, arachnaphobia. The simple pleasures of life.

I had one of these bird spiders drop on my head. I thought my mate had placed his hand on my noggin and squeezed it gently. I turned around, and eeeeep did the old knock-the-top-off-my-head dance, to a fast mexican beat. Lucky they are pretty harmless. It took some shaking off. Brrrrrrrrrr.

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[builder]

Camping out with my son one night at Douglas Daley hot springs, the lad went looking for firewood. He came back white as a sheet. Seen a big snake, he said. We went to have a look, and indeed, it was the biggest ******* snake I've seen in the wild. An olive python, maybe eleven feet long, and as thick as my thigh.

Apparently harmless, like most pythons, there was one incident near Darwin, where a young bloke woke up to find an olive python swallowing his arm. It was up to the elbow, and took some convincing to let go. The boy's fingers were beginning to dissolve.

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[tizz]

No, there's nothing creepy about the Australian outback LOL