For those that have seen the movie "Up" - "The Cone of Shame"Originally Posted by GJM
Did somebody post this on the forum somewhere already...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLA9Vark-TI
For those that have seen the movie "Up" - "The Cone of Shame"
Did somebody post this on the forum somewhere already...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLA9Vark-TI
I’m immune to wasp stings - they just don’t hurt me, and all I get is a tiny red bump. It’s my mutant ability. But that whole cycle of being paralyzed and eaten alive is nightmare fuel.
Same here. We get brown recluses in our office garage. They gotta go. Wolf spiders, if indoors, get relocated outside. Everything else gets a pass. We also get banana spiders (golden orb weavers) which are really cool. You can watch them get bigger and fatter throughout the summer. And they don’t give two hoots about people, they just chill out on their web.
We are literally thick with Spiny Orb weavers in red, yellow and white later in the year, plus some goldens.
Wasp wise it's red wasps & yellow jackets everywhere, mud daubers collecting spiders for their nests (they like to check for them under the brim of your ball cap), and some occasionally hornets, cicada-killers and cow-killers.
Last edited by GuanoLoco; 04-19-2019 at 09:20 AM.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Doodie Project?
I'm convinced that spiders are really just nature's way of saying, "Fuck you." Spiders give me the woolies and wasps and ants I'm deathly allergic to.
And yet my favorite places in the world are deserts. Where spiders, scorpions, wasps, and ants are in high abundance.
Why? Because I hate pollen more.
This post brought to you by not enough coffee yet this morning.
Guys, if you think spiders are scary you haven't accidentally happened upon a nest of Tarantula Hawks.
Some years back in southern NM, inspecting a motor pool full of old 5-tons before sending them off to DRMO (sad face - I *loved* M923's and M939's) one of the Soldiers in my squad walked by one of the numerous 5-tons in the lot and said 'Hey Sarn't, this one is making a weird noise'
This troop is tough as nails - black female from S. Florida that could hang with the guys on anything and everything physical and could run the wheels off of an M4. But as I got closer I heard them in the back of the truck. It sounds like a wasp's nest but with a shitload more bass, the 'buzz' is a much deeper tone. It will make your hair stand on end if you've never heard it before.
Before I could warn her, she peeled back the flap on the back of the 5-ton and screamed like she had seen an alien. Which isn't inaccurate if you've never seen them before. There were dozens if not hundreds of tarantula hawks in there. One buzzed by her head and she swatted at it, which got its attention and I just screamed at her to run. It followed her for 20-30 feet and then went about it's business.
Someone had left a bunch of field chow UGRA boxes in that 5-ton, and the food attracted pests which attracted tarantulas which apparently attracted the tarantula hawks. It was a stack of boxes about 4ft by 4ft and it was obviously now a hive of sorts.
In another incident years and years before that, a fellow Boy Scout was stung by one because he messed with it like an idiot. It stung him on his left shoulder near his neck. I had never seen someone in such obvious agonizing pain before and I don't think I have since. They are not kidding when they say it's a deep, miserably painful sting. A wasp sting is like scratching an itch in comparison. So I damn well knew not to fuck with them in that 5-ton, and we just called range control for them to deal with it.
Tarantulas are just weird big fat furry spiders that are easy to move, capture, and otherwise deal with without pain or problems. Tarantula Hawks are straight up HP Lovecraft flying harbingers of fucking evil and we're lucky that they hate Tarantulas more than humans for the most part.
And then there are these motherfuckers in Italy, where they call them Carabinieri (state police).
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
I've known I was allergic to anything hymenoptera since I was 4, when I encountered a swarm of yellow jackets in a lumber pile. I've been extremely lucky considering the life I've lived. It's hard to believe that I've only been stung 6 times in over 70 years. I have carried a twin pack of Epi-Pens for over 60 years, but still needed the heart needle twice. Once, because I was too slow to realize I'd been stung, and the other time I was in an Army convoy. For anyone who isn't allergic, it's hard to convey what a story about a killer bee attack can do to your thoughts.
We have the cicada killer wasp in Ohio. I’ve lived here over 50 years and only started seeing them the last couple
I witnessed one of these mass migrations in southwestern New Mexico many years ago. There were so many that it looked like dark water flowing across the highway.
It occurred on a very lightly traveled section of road and I think I was probably the first person to pass by, as all of the tarantulas I saw appeared to be completely healthy and untouched by passing vehicles.
I think if I had been unfortunate enough to have a flat tire around that time, I may have driven 50 miles on the rim. Creepy stuff!
That story gave me the willies.
One of our kids as a toddler mistook a tarantula hawk for a butterfly. The screams were epic.
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