Living right between a fairly vast woodland area and the Atlantic coast, I tend to get a lot of wildlife in, near, or in the area around my house. Raccoons are extremely common, and I've had to pull a few off the road that have fried themselves on the powerlines. Deer, foxes, and coyotes have also been fairly common occurrences (the former of the three I've seen as recently as two weeks ago, before we left for vacation) as well as black bears, although I've only seen them on two occasions loafing around in the woods behind the house. Nothing much out of the ordinary. Also, despite only seeing them on a handful of occasions and that they're entirely harmless, I FUCKING HATE THESE THINGS!

I remember finding a mantis about two years prior. Thing ended up flying into a spider web and got demolished.

I also remember watching a wasp stuck in a web war with a spider, and the spider won. 'twas a fun show.

Why? Horseshoe crabs are rather adorable, me thinks. They're like what I imagine pets in an alien world look like.

No, I don't have nor want to see your fucking spiders, man. I usually don't have a fear of insects or arachnids, but the idea of spiders as big as dishes is too much for me.

I just live in the countryside which is savage, brutal and mutant altogether. You have to see our spiders.



Those beasts usually are 9-12 CM, but there are some that are way larger than that. Once I was camping and one of those things was just besides me when I was sleeping. It scarred the fuck out of me since it was the largest female of those I've seen in my life :24 CM of pure insanity.

I just find they look absolutely disgusting. Put it this way. Imagine you're in a tank, and 20 or so horseshoe crabs are crawling all over you. JUST CRAWLING WITH THERE SPINY LEGS, CRUSTY SHELL, AND GROSS MOUTH. *shudders*. I basically look at them as the marine equivalent of a cockroach and I know, my fear of them is incredibly irrational. It's odd too, because I have no problem with other crustaceans, including lobsters.

Want a marine equivalent of a cockroach? Here, give this thing a look. After catching a glimpse of a giant isopod, trust me, horseshoe crabs will become something akin to sea puppies.

Looks like a Lovecraftian alien facehugger.

Exactly what I was thinking.

It appears that they'll bite too (Wikipedia says they're carnivorous and feed on small bottom dwelling creatures, so I'm sure a finger or two isn't exempt). Creepy looking things and those spiny little fucking legs. Definitely something I'd keep at a 'poking distance'. Dunno though, I think I'd still take it over the horseshoe crab, it lacks the nomming vagina mouth.

same, here.
wish I saw them more often.

you don't get them where you are? [nz]

yea, but only spot one about once a year, or less.

next time we get loads of them here i'll snap off some photogs to share

I was sitting on the couch one lazy Sunday afternoon and heard a rattle noise at my front door. I assumed it was my cat and opened the door while still watching tv. I didn't feel the cat rub against my legs so I looked down and saw a big ass blue tongue lizard haha almost shit myself

When I lived in Brunei there were orangutans that would come into our house and steal fruit, as cool as that might sound having orangutans in your house, it really wasn't as I lived right in the middle of the rain forest in a new housing development and these beasts were rabid and wild as anything.
When they stole shit from your house, you stood back and let them completely trash your house.

holy shit, really? that's freaky, an orang-utan could easily kill a full grown adult male human [so i've heard, seen on tv etc]
they look quite docile but i suppose a full blown wild ape is a bit different to some poor thing locked in a zoo aye.

Chimps, orangutans, and similar creatures are bloody dangerous, man. They're very prone to violence, and an adult of any of those species is around three times stronger than the average adult human male, so yeah, you have to stay away from the nasty little fuckers if you value your physical integrity.

Gorillas still have the smallest wee-wees.

That's like my wife's dream to live there and see the wild apes up close and personal.

It seems to me that almost all animals on the higher end of intelligence (humans included) are prone to violence and general dickery. Gorillas are pretty much the only ones that aren't total cocks to everyone and everything (possibly related to their aforementioned small wee-wees).

loads of monarch butterflies and swallows around here at the moment, it'll be full-on skink weather soon, yay!

i think a primate encounter would be truly terrifying, more so than a crocodile or wildebeest type meeting
there's a pretty freaky video online of a tour group in some jungle coming across these gorillas [probably scheduled] but still, there's nothing to stop them wasting the puny humans.

As long as you're not trying to get them out of the house with a broom, you're alright.
In that climate too, closing a door or shutting a window really isn't an option for most of the year so when they do come in to get food, you just have to wait in the next room until they are done and hope they don't destroy too much of your kitchen.

They were also prone to stealing washing off clothes lines too, we ended up having to hang everything on a railing on the balcony two stories up.

Gorillas are great. I just really needed to point out their tiny appendages because I'm really immature.

Wildlife here in germany is harmless. No venomous creatures & insects are small.
I only encountered housecats in my garden. Oh and one afternoon a bat flew over to my window while I was sitting on my terrace, it was just sitting there and flew away one hour later.

Nothing special but I don't ever want to encounter most of the animals mentioned here, haha!

Am I late for this? Every once in a while we get these:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DFgOOOi-JnE/U ... +cueva.JPG

that's truly heinous

Note to self: do not click on images in this thread at 4:30 AM before going to bed.

Seriously, what in the hell is that? It's like a spider and Pinsir the Pokémon had a kid.

We don't really get anything too bad here in IL. Except for house centipedes. I'd post a picture for all to see, but I have a crippling phobia of them, and even seeing a picture is going to make me panic. No joke, it's really bad, actually. Goddamn hell-crawlers.

We call them "guabas" (acute on the second "a"; pronounced woo-ah-BAHS) but I recently found out that they are called "scorpion spiders" or "whip spiders". One time, I saw one of them fighting a couple of lizards. The spider managed to survive and chase away both lizards.
They are totally badass, but I definitely don't like to get close to them.

That is fucking terrifying. Had to look it up. Wiki says they're harmless to humans, which is a definite plus. Still, I would lose my shit if I encountered one of those bastards!

@ Gelseth, you haven't had a run in with city rats before have you?

Opened the basement door to go do some laundry not so long ago and I see this shadow a couple feet in booting it across the floor. At first I thought there was a mouse, as it was roughly that size, but no, upon further inspection it was the biggest fucking house centipede I have seen dart into a row of boxes. I am never touching those boxes again. Spiders will never be my enemy, but house centipedes? They are the only bastards that ever bit me and left me in severe pain. Look under your covers before lying down is my advice.

jesus, i thought they were cockroaches, we get them here too.

Here too, they're EVERYWHERE fuck!! But damn, Apex, this was a big one, the ones I've seen in my basement are way smaller.

In the country side at my dad's, there's a lot of raccoons. One evening, I was going to bed, I heard a noise coming from outside, I opened the lights, a big raccoon was on the garbage can holding a box of something. He looked at me, I looked at him. He was like "hey man, sorry to disturb ya', I'll be on my way" and then I closed the lights!

Anyway, I'm happy I don't live in a country where you can meet fucking awful bugs. Australia, be damned!

There's never been anything too interesting where I live but deer, foxes, chipmunks, skunks, racoons, badgers, and possums are common. I'm not very familiar with different types of birds, but the more noticeable are cardinals and blue birds along with falcons. We also occasionally get woodpeckers which are really annoying.

So yeah, nothing interesting.

what do you call a woodpecker without a beak?

My basement is a certified battle ground I am sure. I have seen wolf spiders, and huge armored looking beetles down there that would be a match for that Centipede any day. I am dead serious here. You can bet as soon as those lights go out there are huge epic battles that would be worthy of s Bolt Thrower song. An unfinished basement is natures coliseum.

"Arachnid dissidents, poisonous rebels
Defying the athropod empire
And six legged, horned tanks
On the way to extermination"

found this thing on my doorstep a couple of days ago, it was pretty massive [about the size of my thumb] i thought it was a cockroach but it may not be
it was still alive and covered in ants and somehow tangled in a spider web and some other debris was stuck that too, it was a bit of a mess
you can just make out the thistle seed [thistledown] on the left

Those things are hideous. I recall being impressed that the ancient (100+ years old) apartment I lived in for the second half of college seemed to have no insects whatsoever, until I saw a gigantic house centipede in the lobby of the first floor. I attempted to crush it but crawled off, and I had to pray like crazy those things wouldn't make it to my efficiency on the second floor...Thankfully they didn't, which is surprising given the amount of food crumbs/piles of dirty clothes I tended to leave around the place.

Plus, they're so bizarrely light when they move with all those legs...It's like they're hovering.