Just wondering if anyone has any animals, reptiles, inverts, or others, that you’re absolutely terrified of.
I’ll go first, i cannot deal with horse flies. Absolutely not. I am cool with most other inverts and in fact i love most of them (mosquitoes excluded) but horse flies freak me out to the point that i will scream and run away when i see one (not ideal because they’re everywhere in texas in the summer lol). I’m even chill with wasps to the point where I’ll just chill and let them land on me but horse flies are absolutely terrifying.
Just thought this could be a fun little topic because people in the reptile community are seen as fearless lots of the time when in reality i’m freaked out by a fly lol
I have some arachnophobic tendencies. As a snake guy it makes me respectful of people who want nothing to do with snakes. And while I appreciate them and think a lot are cool looking, there are a great number of spider species I don’t even want to see pics of. But I evict them most of the time instead of killing them when I find them indoors. Pregnant recluses usually have to shoot the porcelain rapids though.
Jellyfish. There’s just something about them that I find seriously creepy. The way they move, their life cycle, the fact they have no brains, their stinging tentacles that can still sting you even after they’ve broken off from the jellyfish…it all just skeeves me out.
And ticks. While I’m not fond of any blood-sucking/biting inverts, things like mosquitoes and biting flies are just an annoyance to me. Ticks make my skin crawl. I found one on me on a recent hike, and even though I flicked it off right after it landed on me, I was feeling them crawl on me for the rest of the day. I hate ticks. They’re so gross.
Honestly it might be easier to list what I’m not afraid of than what I am, but I’ll mention a couple of broad categories. I can’t stand most insects, this includes butterflies which confuses a lot of people, but it’s the sticky feed and the creepy compound eyes. Also Arachnids specifically make me want to peel my skin off, and in the case of chiggers, I mean that literally.
Centipedes and earwigs for me . I love all animals including beetles and millipedes but something about centipedes and those little earwigs that can crawl in your ear freak me out to no end when nothing else does
That’s easy. #1: roaches. #2: silverfish. Both invade the house and both are disgusting. The thought of one touching my skin, forget about it. The worst part is not knowing what they crawled over: fruit that you’ve left out, clean dishes, your toothbrush, your pillow. . I almost never let dirty dishes sit overnight. That’s just ringing the roach dinner bell. I don’t know how people feed roaches to their herps, much less raise and handle them. But I guess I’m not really “scared” of them. I will kill them. It’s not like they’re sharks. I’ve seen Jaws waaaay too many times.
I don’t think earwigs crawl into your ears, at least no more than any other bug. That sounds like an old wives tale perpetrated through the generations.
How topical. I sh*t you not, and I told another member of this forum about this the other day.
I’ve never seen as many earwigs as I see where I live now. Not even a week ago, I woke up with something lodged between my cheek and gum, and I don’t use tobacco products. Guess what I spit into my hand?
Horseflies are the only thing that I can think of. I think part of it may how loud they are that scares me out so much but I don’t know if that is actually part of it. I regularly pick up stuff that can be much more painful to get bit by with no issue or fear.
For example assassin bugs-
Earwigs in the mouth and ear? I’ve never heard of such things. I would have a heart attack if that were a roach or silverfish. The worst I’ve had is an occasional gnat flying in my mouth.
What if some bug takes up residence in a CPAP hose, then you go to use it and…. Oh, the horror! Think about that when you mask up tonight.
Good topic, @baby_yoda. It’s interesting to read others’ perspectives. I love jellyfish, for example, but I respect that not everyone does. I find spiders interesting, though I am kinda horrified by the brown recluse after my daughter had an infestation of them in her house. Generally a fan of all herps.
Here’s my list of “nope.” I don’t know that I’m scared of ticks, but I do despise them. I am scared of their potential effect on my life. I got into a nest of deer ticks a few years ago, had hundreds and hundreds of tiny, disease-carrying specks on me, got Lyme disease. Awful. I can’t stand fire ants, which are invasive and aggressive and vicious. I get creeped out by large land slugs, the ones which are the size of a man’s finger. (I love sea slugs.) We had lots of them in Indiana, and they regularly got into our basement. Unfortunately for all concerned, I stepped on a giant slug barefoot in the dark on a damp concrete floor. Thoroughly disgusting results. Not a fan.
We’ve got ticks here too, though maybe not like you do. They seem worse this year, probably because we got a lot of rain.
After I got back to my car from that hike, the feeling of little legs crawling in my bra was too intense to ignore, so I stripped to the waist in my car just to make sure I really was imagining it. I didn’t care who saw or what they thought of the crazy lady stripping naked and losing her , I had to be sure there were no more ticks on me.
In hindsight, I feel a little silly for doing that. But it did make the drive home a whole lot more pleasant, so I’ve got no regrets.
Omg that’s literally my worst nightmare. So sorry that happened to you.
When I was a kid, we got a tick infestation in our house. One of our dogs had gotten some ticks we didn’t notice right away, and at least one of them had babies. We were finding them for weeks after that. shudder Thankfully the ticks seemed to prefer the dogs to us, so mostly we were just pulling them off the dogs, but sometimes we’d find them in the sofa and other random places around the house. It was awful, though thankfully none of them attached to us humans (at least that I remember). After that, we started doing thorough tick checks on all the dogs after going to the park or taking them on a hike.
Hey, I totally understand that strip down! My tick invasion happened when I was checking out a house to maybe buy. In retrospect, I should have stripped right there in the driveway, and thrown the clothes away! Lol
It’s ironic, because as a kid who freely ran the woods, ticks weren’t a big deal to me growing up. They were just a nuisance we dealt with on us, the dogs, the cats, the horses. But that was then.
Ugh, how awful. It’s one thing to get bitten outside. Indoor infestations feel like such a violation. I remember getting fleas in the house one year, then we went on vacation. Came back to ravenous fleas, lol. I for one am very grateful that now we’ve got flea and tick preventatives for the pets!
Ticks normally aren’t a huge deal here. Like, they’re out there, they pop up occasionally, but mostly they’re not something I worry about too much. But every now and then, we’ll have a summer where they just seem to be EVERYWHERE. This is shaping up to be one of those summers, unfortunately.
And yeah, home infestations are the worst. I don’t have any dogs right now, but if/when I do, you can be sure I’ll be staying up to date with flea and tick prevention!
My cat did get a bad case of fleas when I first moved into my current place. She’s an indoor cat, but my roommate at the time was an idiot and frequently left the front door open, so she got out a few times, and came back with fleas one of those times. But I’d take fleas over ticks any day.
I don’t like ticks. Not afraid of them per se, but I’ve had Lyme Disease before and it was not pleasant at all. Got bit by a tick the very first day I moved to Vermont, about 12 years ago now. Lyme wasn’t as well understood at that point, so when I was at the doctor’s they brought in about 12 medical students to come look at my rash. Quite the welcome home!
. I love all animals including beetles and millipedes but something about centipedes and those little earwigs that can crawl in your ear freak me out to no end when nothing else does 
. I almost never let dirty dishes sit overnight. That’s just ringing the roach dinner bell. I don’t know how people feed roaches to their herps, much less raise and handle them. But I guess I’m not really “scared” of them. I will kill them. It’s not like they’re sharks. I’ve seen Jaws waaaay too many times.
, I had to be sure there were no more ticks on me. 
