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Was just hearing this terrifying wheezing cry at 3:30 in the morning, like someone going "AHHHH!!! AHHHH!!! AHHHH!!!" loudly over and over but like they were out of breath and wheezing, my dogs were going loving insane from it I took my stupidly powerful LED flashlight with focus function and poked my head out the second story window to look around. Apologies for the photos, by the time I ran and grabbed my phone to take a picture, the bastard had run into the woods and was in the bushes at the edge of the forest; the white dot is his eyes, staring at me from the leaves   Anyways, the source of the cries was a huge loving coyote, standing a few feet from my back door, making this really unsettling sound over and over. First time I've considered getting a rifle. I don't want my dogs getting attacked by a coyote, and this was a gigantic one, as big, maybe bigger, than a labrador retriever. I was preparing to get fencing to prevent my dogs from getting out, but looks like I'll have to consider getting fencing to prevent coyotes from getting in. Now for some critters I do NOT want to kill This beautiful iridescent weevil my neighbor found in his garden and brought to me, it would NOT sit still and so these are the best shots I could get   Bunnies at my dad's place that absolutely did not give a poo poo I was pulling into the driveway a couple feet from them and were EVERYWHERE  Right after having almost the entire property "scraped" by a landscaping company, our local groups of wild turkeys kept showing up to dig around in the freshly overturned soil for bugs. The blue thing is a tarp I put down to starve invasive weeds that got buried until the landscapers unearthed it lol  
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Jul 9, 2022 09:37
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european hornets are super chill, I've had them just hang out on my hand before. wish all hornets were like that 
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Jul 17, 2022 06:07
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trendColdPie posted:And these assholes, Japanese beetles. I kill dozens of these every day. They swarm and skeletonize leaves of most food crops. They're a major pest all over the Eastern half of the US. my grandpa used to have a farm and he had traps that would literally fill with these fuckers DAILY. just a gallon bag full of the fuckers.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:59
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Slugworth posted:Why do these tiny little spiders create unbelievably large webs? I'm not imagining it, am I? Every once in awhile I'll notice a thread spanning like 20 feet, and bam, one of those little black and white guys hanging out on it.
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Jul 25, 2022 17:29
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McGavin posted:Bald faced hornets are generally pretty chill for a wasp.
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Aug 7, 2022 00:11
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McGavin posted:They're equally painful according to the Schmidt Pain Index, but I wouldn't know because bald-faced hornets are so chill I've never been stung by one. now if you want a chill-rear end hornet, european hornets are about as cool as they come. even handled one bare-handed a few times, and caught one right out of the air with my hand as well, no problems ever. they're really just interested in going about their business rather than picking a fight.
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Aug 7, 2022 03:29
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I will never know pain like when I had two red paper wasps from an in-ground nest I stepped on fly right up in my shorts and into my boxers and stung me twice directly in the nuts kill them all, I say
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Aug 7, 2022 07:46
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MagpieConcept posted:I don't really get the "gently caress wasps" thing.
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Aug 7, 2022 21:19
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that is a very unwell-looking vole, especially if it was just hanging around for a while
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Aug 8, 2022 20:48
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they're invasive but about as mundane as an invasive species can get, it seems. they've not been recorded as significantly harming anything, and only contest carpenter bees rather than eradicate them. honestly not too bad. I think the only really bad aspect of them, which makes perfect sense considering they're from china, is that they tend to prefer pollinating invasive plants from china.
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Aug 13, 2022 00:03
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my favorite bird, the Gray Catbird, paid my dad a visit while I was there. I dunno where it was exactly, but it was very nearby and VERY loud. these videos are not from that, but it's the same calls pretty much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR-CgVAGSyQ&hd=1&t=178s I love the call because the bird always starts with that fairly tame meowing, and then it progressively ramps it up repeatedly over the next dozen or so times, until it gets to the point where it's no longer going EHHHHHHHH, but instead going EHHHHH-WEHHHHHH. it's the funniest poo poo every time I hear it because it sounds like the bird is psyching itself up into a tizzy every time I love the Gray Catbird because it is similar(in the same family even, I think) to the famous Lyrebird of Australia which can mimic an untold number of things up to and including human tools like chainsaws and cameras. The Catbird can mimic over a hundred other beautiful bird calls, but the default Catbird call is...an angry cat meow-sounding EHHHHHHH noise. It's hilarious. Like listen to the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwCiamHCDQ0 then go to this video, and that's basically what the Catbirds around me do, they do the first video's call a dozen times or so before gradually morphing it into the second video's EHHHH-WEHHHH. damned hilarious, just sounds like such an angry little jerk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXGHKKnzQvk
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Aug 18, 2022 01:37
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yeah that's 100% a jumping spider
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Aug 22, 2022 09:03
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So I was having lunch and suddenly saw this guy crawling across the floor in one of the offices in my UPS hub. I have absolutely no clue how he got here, it's solid concrete/asphalt for like half a mile until you hit swamp. And he's a gigantic sucker too, about an inch and a half long or so.  Is it just a regular ol' mealworm grub? It's way bigger than any mealworm I've ever seen, like half again as big.
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Aug 26, 2022 03:57
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Aha, that would absolutely make sense. We get tons of stuff shipped through ups, from ladybugs to preying mantis to turtles and live lobsters. Think it's fine to let him free in massachusetts? I feel like the little guy got lucky by wandering up to me and if it's safe to do so I'll just let him free in the yard. there's shitloads of mealworm beetles milling about freely outside at night. If it's a feed critter I'm guessing it's already spread far and wide through accidental escapes and such anyways, right?
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Aug 26, 2022 09:40
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Syenite posted:Anyone have an idea what this is? (In Ohio) looks like an ichneumon wasp of some sort.
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Sep 10, 2022 14:32
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that's a  snake
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Sep 11, 2022 07:16
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that's a blister beetle, no touchie likely emerging from a wasp nest that it parasitized
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Sep 26, 2022 20:56
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I wonder if there would be an armadillo pet industry if they weren't little leprosy vector. they seem like awesome little guys.
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Nov 7, 2022 04:50
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you have to be careful with anything you buy. I bought a 50lb bag of rice and it had pantry moths in it, and we were plagued by the little fuckers infesting everything else for months until I picked up Dr. Killigan's Pantry Moth Traps, which eradicated all the males over time and caused them to eventually peter out. same thing with like, bananas, you're always gonna get fruit flies if you buy bananas. always freeze or refrigerate stuff you buy for a couple days to kill most pests like grubs etc.
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Nov 20, 2022 13:46
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meet Bob the Bathroom Spider Bob is a murderous cannibal bathroom spider in my bathroom. Originally a tiny dime-sized bugger who precariously set up shop under the soap tray in the shower, I figured they'd get washed away and didn't bother actively killing them. Bob grew fat off the infestation of pantry moths I had over the summer, and proceeded to relocate to the ceiling of the bathroom, molting multiple times and getting quite big. then one day, a bunch of other variously-sized bathroom spiders appeared out of nowhere in different spots all around the shower area of the bathroom. Over the next few days I would then see Bob in a new location, and one less of the other spiders every time I walked in there. Eventually, Bob wiped out all the newcomers, just waltzing into their webs and killing them, then moved back under the soap tray they originally hung out under. Then a week ago, Bob disappeared. I figured they just went somewhere and died as spiders do. but suddenly, I walk in today, turn on the light, and...the best way I can explain it is imagine the most awkward, stupid way a spider could walk, with this as the sound effect, and you have how Bob was running gracefully along the floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnF9Q9f6EUE&t=35s I'm generally pretty unaccepting of critters in the bathroom, but figured Bob could help with the pantry moth problem so left them alone(and they did! the traps I had caught all the males, and bob's webs caught a bunch of females). It's wild to see one grow this huge though, never seen one this big, almost a three inch legspan. the above photo was the best I could snap before they booked it to curl up and hide in a corner.
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Dec 13, 2022 11:20
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Most spiders can bite(though you have to be actively trying to make them in a lot of cases), but especially in places like where you are, they just leave little irritated spots for a day or so.
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Dec 15, 2022 09:37
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I swear people have posted elephants and whales in previous critterquests so go
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Jan 16, 2023 12:20
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turkey turkey turkey turkey they're loving HUGE. by far the biggest wild turkeys I've ever seen. they're over 3 feet tall and probably weigh at least a few dozen pounds, they're FAT bastards.  
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Jan 30, 2023 22:41
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Yeah it wouldn't surprise me if that's mostly feathery fluff rather than body, but still, they really do look like dinosaurs out there. Not very responsive to gobbling, bunch of funless jerks
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Jan 31, 2023 02:11
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okay. I can't draw, but I want to give at least some idea of what I saw. I was driving home in massachusetts and in the darkness on the side of the road, I momentarily saw a black silhouette walking on top of the snow before it disappeared into some bushes, and it had kind of this shape: it was walking with its butt up higher than its front legs, like a lemur:  the thing that was most notable was its tail, which was short and much thicker than, like, a rat's, possum's, or cat's tail or something, and pointed upwards like the lovely mspaint drawing. it wasn't walking like a cat either. it didn't seem to have much of a visible neck. it was about a foot or foot and a half long if I had to guess. Any ideas what it might be?
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Mar 3, 2023 10:59
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Ah gently caress, that's ABSOLUTELY what it was! Thanks!
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Mar 3, 2023 15:28
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That's a big fuckin skunk
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Mar 3, 2023 17:26
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that rules
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Mar 26, 2023 05:00
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immuhjer
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Apr 25, 2023 14:06
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it's wild the amount of people who seem to take joy in not having an account. Like, why not have one? Keeps all your uploads and albums in one place, it's great. Some folks seem hostile to the suggestion of having one, it's weird
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Apr 25, 2023 14:37
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blister beetles, no touchie unless you are also a blister beetle
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Apr 29, 2023 10:11
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It looks like one of those spindly starfish.
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May 7, 2023 07:30
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bedbugs are tiny and get really red right after they've eaten, and are way more likely to show up in an NYC apartment bathroom than a clover mite. is it a bedbug?
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May 19, 2023 15:09
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YeahTubaMike posted:They get red AFTER they've been eaten?  the babies are basically the size of a sesame seed or smaller and turn bright red when they bite. although apparently clover mites are a known home invader during springtime, though they don't cause any problems since they don't bite and don't eat anything, but crushing them leaves a red splotch. so it very well could have been a clover mite, I didn't think they would be a thing deep in a city.
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May 19, 2023 16:02
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I remember when I was a little kid I was exploring at the edge of the forest at a family reunion because I was bored, and found a 3-foot-long snake like that one. Excitedly, I grabbed it and ran back to the party holding it in one arm up in the air, where I was met with horrified screams as adults rushed over to grab me and take the snake away. Because what they saw running towards them was a kid excitedly dashing at them with rivers of blood running down his arm and a huge snake above his head curled back around and gnawing on my forearm, the snake had been biting me repeatedly all over but since it's fangs were so insanely sharp, I never felt a thing so didn't pay it any more mind beyond "I wanna show everyone the cool snake I found!" I learned to pay more respect to wildlife that day.
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May 25, 2023 23:41
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Shiney McShine posted:Some Noctuid moths
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May 27, 2023 22:31
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yeah, that's a phidippus audax, the bold jumping spider, patron saint of critterquest threads. I love them, they're amazing at hunting down pests, and can even take on yellowjackets! I'll never forget seeing one leap at one midair and take it down, then wrestle it to death. badass little guys I just had to rescue my mom from one of these big guys(not my photo, it was justifiably FREAKING OUT so it wouldn't sit still for one) who somehow got in her room and caused the dogs to go absolutely ballistic  a regular ground beetle, usually found under rocks, I have no idea how it made it all the way into her bedroom. the dog wanted nothing else but to eat the thing, and was jumping all over hell and creation trying to catch it. they can nip, so I carefully cupped my hand around it on the thing it had momentarily stopped on and carried the lot of it outside, where it proceeded to peel out and crawl almost to my shoulder before I brushed it off.
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Jun 1, 2023 02:23
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awwwww, the most adorable fly
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Jun 11, 2023 11:36
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Friend posted:And while I was looking for that picture I found a pic of this lil guy I took last week with my crappy phone camera macro lens
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Jun 14, 2023 03:22
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:09 |
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yeah, there's lots of non-pest cockroaches and crickets, we have these tiny little tan "wood roaches" in our forest that are about a quarter inch long, they sometimes make their way inside but never set up shop like palmetto bugs and the like do.
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Jun 21, 2023 00:25
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