Creepy crawly pets

[Huntn]

I think I've mentioned on here, maybe even in this thread, tha I'll even save a roach, but also I have yet to have a roach infestation problem (knock on wood) anywhere I've lived. I believe they are close relatives of the praying mantis.

I remember in elementary school we had a terrarium with a praying mantis egg case and when it hatched there were little mantises all over the place. I think they would be cool pets.

This part of the post deviates from the original intent of the thread, celebrating cute spiders, which (cute and uncute) don’t bother me unless they were everywhere in my house. As I said, if they can be captured, they are released outside. This is because I regard spiders as basically good insects devouring bad insects. 🕷🕷

The reality is that both myself and wife have a deep bias against roaches any insect and any critter that desires to infest my house. I dislike roaches and flies because they live in filth, and before the fly lands on my arm, the last stop was probably a turd dinner. I realize roaches and flies also serve a purpose, just not in my house.

And regarding roaches because I treat the entrance and strategic pathways in the house with Ortho Home Defense biannually, the only ones I find are dead or dying ones, the big ones, American Cockroaches, sometimes referred to as water or palmetto bugs. They typically slip in under the front door. I have been meaning to adjust that for years.

This goes back to the first time I lived in Texas, 1979, before persistent insecticides (I think). I‘d wake up in the morning and kick the kitchen trash can and invariably would hear the scurrying of insect feet. So, the kitchen trash ended up in the garage, where with the same procedure, if I heard the dreadful noise, a healthy dose of Raid would be applied.

The Only Good Roach...
And, no, it’s not sleeping.


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The commercial products I use:

thresholds of the house, bathroom, and kitchen

Attic and garage

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Attic, have not seen a mouse in the house, but there is evidence in the attic. I had a large sticky pad up there a while back and something walked away with it. It might have been a squirrel, and since then found a hole in the soffit I patched.

 

[Alli]

I cannot tolerate roaches. I don’t know why. Although a roach certainly save the day in Doom Patrol.

When I lived in Taiwan, we had those extra huge flying roaches. They could make life miserable. We’ve been lucky living in the south, despite the abundance of “palmetto” bugs, we never get them in the house. (Knock wood.) Good thing, cause our cats are such wimps they’d probably run from them.

 

[Alli]

It seems to be mantid week.

 

[Alli]

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Check out this asshole.

 

[hulugu]

I cannot tolerate roaches. I don’t know why. Although a roach certainly save the day in Doom Patrol.

When I lived in Taiwan, we had those extra huge flying roaches. They could make life miserable. We’ve been lucky living in the south, despite the abundance of “palmetto” bugs, we never get them in the house. (Knock wood.) Good thing, cause our cats are such wimps they’d probably run from them.

The Sonoran desert has two "bugs" that are just huge and straight-up horrifying for some:

First, the Sonoran tarantula:

Second, the Palo Verde beetle, which ABC15 a Phoenix-area news station decided to call a "demon bug" one year:



I've been informed this morning that we are getting an axolotl, and that my wife has purchased a fish tank for our new critter.

 

[thekev]

Check out this asshole.

That's a very strong web. If I had a pet female spider like that (the guy refers to it as "her") I would name it Sigourney Weaver, that or Charlotte.

 

[Alli]

Check out this asshole.

Total asshole. But that’s what I have all over the yard. He must not realize how prevalent they are along the gulf coast.

That's a very strong web. If I had a pet female spider like that (the guy refers to it as "her") I would name it Sigourney Weaver, that or Charlotte.

I call all our spiders Charlotte.

 

[lizkat]

Total asshole. But that’s what I have all over the yard. He must not realize how prevalent they are along the gulf coast.

I call all our spiders Charlotte.

'fraid I was calling a cute but very loud little cricket in my kitchen last night by some other names, while halfheartedly trying on the hour to capture him and put him back outside into what was still a fairly balmy evening. At one point I closed a window so I could address him with more abandon and not shock my neighbors downwind.

That cricket was smart to come inside though, however he managed it. Overnight it dropped off pretty cold out there.

You can tell the approximate temperature by the rate of a cricket's chirping, but it only works down to around 50ºF or so. Just the male chirps and when it gets chilly he loses interest (it's a shout-out to potential mates and a warning to other males). Yes really. It's Dolbear's law: crickets chirp at consistent rates in their ambient temperature.

The rough equation is below although it varies slightly by type, and the little guy I was trying to send back outdoors was a field cricket, whose chirps are also affected by point of their mating cycle and their age... and I wasn't gonna take his chatty word for anything anymore anyway after listening to him for a half hour straight.

T = 50+[(N-40)/4]​

T = temperature (Fahrenheit)​

N = number of chirps per minute​

Yeah. N also = too loud; earbuds and Smokin' Joe Kubek to the rescue.

 

[Yoused]

Name my new pet:

 

[Alli]

Name my new pet:
View attachment 601

Spud.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Looking to get one of these little darlings, chilean flame dwarf tarantula.



Not available or out of stock at my usual sources. Maybe one of you masochists who insist on still using Facebook can check the marketplace and we can work something out.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Total asshole.

I call him an asshole with affection. He has a whole series of videos where he purposely hunts down and gets stung or bit by the insects with the reported most painful non lethal effect.

Behold just one of many.

 

[Yoused]

That's a very strong web. If I had a pet female spider like that (the guy refers to it as "her") I would name it Sigourney Weaver, that or Charlotte.

Ironic, that. Some insane people in Madagascar went out and collected Golden Orb Weaver silk on spindles, which they used to

Spider Wranglers Weave One-Of-A-Kind Tapestry

The American Museum of Natural History in New York unveiled something never before seen: an 11-by-4-foot tapestry made completely of spider silk. The tapestry took four years to make, with the help of more than 1 million spiders.

www.npr.org

 

[Alli]

Looking to get one of these little darlings, chilean flame dwarf tarantula.

Tarantula body language. Did you notice the pattern on the body of that baby looks like a cat face?

 

[Yoused]

This here is not a creepy crawly, in the sense that it is not anxiety-inducing. It spends most of its day drunk on champagne-and-orange-juice cocktails.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

This here is not a creepy crawly, in the sense that it is not anxiety-inducing. It spends most of its day drunk on champagne-and-orange-juice cocktails.

View attachment 637​

What is that? Kind of looks like an assassin bug, kinda.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

This little jumping spider was on a table at work. Couldn't really get a clear closeup because of how tiny they were, smaller than an average adult ant.

 

[Yoused]

What is that? Kind of looks like an assassin bug, kinda.

It is the bug that, I think, lives exclusively on the mimosa tree.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

It is the bug that, I think, lives exclusively on the mimosa tree.

The Bug ID app says (with predicted 94% accuracy in this case) that it is a wheel bug which belongs to the assassin bug family. Learnin' shit.