I love 'em, so long as I don't wake up with an indescribable monster crawling up my inner thigh. I love to marvel at the intricacies of nature as a centipede co-ordinates a squillion and one legs with impeccible accuracy to perform a task as simple as walking.
~NipplesAhoy~, my housemate, hates them. Last night she refused to walk even close to the laundry while I was marvelling at a, surprise surprise, centipede, crawling around our laundry sink.
She made me kill it, or suffer her endless tears and complaining. I did so, but felt really bad about doing it. Does anyone else love bugs, or am I the only freak here?
In the two and a half months I've been living in Fitzroy, I have come across:
Plenty of moths (I named them Ritchie Blackmore):
A spider (I couldn't tell you what type, but his name was Bruce Dickinson - Bruce looked nothing like this spider, but I have seen a Golden Orb before too and they make some amazing webs):
A Praying Mantis (his name was Lemmy and has been talked about in another thread):
And a centipede (named Ronnie James Dio):
How cool is this shit!?
I want to learn more about spiders. I wonder if there is a course?
why didn't you just take it outside instead of killing it?
I hate killing insects, although i'm sure I step on at least 50 ants coming in my front door each night.
People who insist on killing a spider just coz it's in the line of vision shit me. If they didn't know it was there, they'd never know it was there. Leave the things alone.
'cause we had a 7ft homeless dude shooting up in the alley near our back door who looked like The Crow last night and I'm more scared of him than I am of ghosts centipedes coming back to kill me in my dreams.
I also have Rob Halford the toy dragon... but he doesn't count.
I am running out of metal gods...
I'm fine with almost all bugs except Huntsman spiders. Most other bugs are freakin' interesting. During summer while smoking I've been following bees and dragonflies around to get a good look.
I saw a huntsman the size of my hand at my parents house last week.
Japanese beetle orgy!
I love all bugs EXCEPT FOR BASTARD APHIDS and am happy to share my property and food with them.
PGOJ have you seen David Attenborough's Life In The Undergrowth? Essential viewing.
You killed it? Jesus. You should have put it in a jar and dropped it down the junkies back.
I like bugs. Except cockies. They can get fucked. Or, indeed, as is usually the case, squashed under my boot heel.
Actually, I agree with the aphids. They're fukt.
No I haven't seen that though. Don't happen to have a copy you wanna lend me, do ya?
fuck i hate slugs. Is there some kind of bait for them that my cat wont eat? the fuckers come into my house. I don't have a single cockroach but instead I get fucking slugs
If I had a slug I'd name it John Butler.
yep, i love bugs too. i can't stop drawing and painting them. they're so freaky and alien looking, plus they have superpowers.
i've had to kill a giant, beautiful goliath moth because of a scared girl. it felt horrible.
i've also gently stroked a huntsman's back with my finger. they're can be quite calm little critters.
Cockroaches are great; when they run away from you it's because they want to clean themselves.
Actually wasps are assholes, too, but I still wouldn't kill one.
One of my most shameful life experiences was emptying a can of Mortein on a redback spider and then watching it sorrowfully drift away. Never killed another bug since. Repellents (Off!, some pelargoniums, pyrethrum daisies) are much nicer than insecticides.
I'm fond of insects. Except for the kind of moths that get into your food and clothes. I hate them with a fierce passion that knows no limits. The revulsion I feel when I see them mating is intense. I kill them on sight. Squashed flat, dead.
My favourite insect is the bumble bee, I could happily follow one around all day, listening to their bumbling buzzing and watching their slightly awkard flight. Do we have them in Oz? I've never seen one here. I miss them. One of my nicest insect watching memories was at Avebury in the UK. I wandered through the lush green grass and the standing stones following a bumble bee while sheep bleated in the distance. It was lovely.
Actually, flies can fuck right off.
Springolator, there are bumblebees in Tasmania!
one of my housemates squashed a moth on the toilet wall last week and left it there for me to clean off.
grr to the unnecessary killing of moths AND the lack of cleaning up your own mess.
Actually, I'm not a fan of slugs and flies.
Imagine stepping on a slug with bare feet.
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I want one of these guys:
I'm acquiring two beautiful baby stick insects this morning.
Perhaps not as warm and cuddly as other animals but I really think invertebrates as pets are the way to go. I've owned a few before (like the one above^) but this is my very first insect. if anyone else wants one do PM me because a prof is giving away a bunch for free
Nice! Monash Uni has a cute terrarium with these guys.
The Melbourne museum has a great live bug display and some friends have taken a course based on the book ''Henderson, A., Henderson, D., Sinclair, J. (2008) Bugs Alive! A Guide to Keeping Australian Invertebrates'' over there.
D'aaaaw! Thats the cutest!
Mrs funtimes had 2 for class pets which we bought home, they don't last that long though, Spiny leaf insects are wicked
YAY
what should I name her? phasmid? that's too boring.
thanks for the book rec. I would love to see that display in melbourne - all the pinned insects at the australian field museum in sydney are pretty rad but on the other hand, they're quite dead.
I love the Australian museum, but the live insects are just amazing.
My friends actually came down from Sydney (Macquarie) to take the course with the authors here. I guess keep an ear out for the next one, behind the scenes is probably the best way to see the display.
Grrr, I have just discovered some weird dangling insect thing in my laundry. It kind of doesn't really resemble being alive and just looks like an oversized splinter. Can anyone put a name to this thing?
O HAI little furry dude, I'm still waiting for you to be my pet...
Grr, thinking what I identified is some kind of moth larvae. Anyone had experiences!?
I'd leave it, moths are harmless. I s'pose you could put it outside if you don't want the little beasties inside.
If it's a clothes moth it's not harmless. There is more than one.
They are not squidgy though, kinda a wood like casing. I hate bugs.
Hey Judy, you ain't gonna get one of those. Mexican red knee tarantula, internationally endangered and protected...but what about a nice chilliean flame leg? Spiders absolutely make the best pets. More interesting than snakes etc. I recommend you try a huntsman. Placid, nice, interesting. Better than those Australian tarantulas, narchy boring spiders they are!
Good point pops, buggered if I know how to distinguish different species of moths. I reckon putting it outside would be the best option.
I know snowwhite, a friend of my mum's is a professor at a university in the UK and her co-worker snaffled one of those guys into the country on the grounds it was for ''research purposes''. I've been thinking about other big furry spiders that one can acquire legally, thanks for the tips!
Block gave me a red back spider egg. They are nasty little beasties, even newborn. I had a chillian red leg for years. He was the best pet. I've has snakes, lizards, frogs, insects, but spiders are the best pets. Recently I had a hunstman, homeless single mother. She was so pretty. I called her Kitty cos she looked like a siamese cat with her markings. She protected and looked after her babies (as opposed to the redbacks that ate each other). I set her free after she recovered from her motherhood.
so many dragonflies around! I saw 2 huge ones hanging out on walls near the bell jar cafe today. I was in a friends backyard yesterday and there were 3 hanging around in the bushes, and an almost dead one on the ground. Then a bee came along, wrestled with the nearly-dead dragonfly and flew off with it's head!
Swarms of them in the back yard today. I also just got bitten by an ant.
Gross!