There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects on earth at any given moment. Seriously, that's a real number. For every one of us, there are 1.5 billion bugs.

But some of them are so horrifying, just one is too many. Here are five you want to avoid at all costs.



Japanese Giant Hornet (vespa mandarinia japonica)

From: Japan, obviously.






Why you must fear it:
It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that'll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive?

Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It'd be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like "Don't worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live," but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo.

Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly


Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata)





Rainforests from Nicaragua to Paraguay


Why you must fear it:
It's a full inch long, it lives in trees and thus can and will fall on you to scare you away from its hive--the one you didn't know was there, because it's in a ****ing tree. Before it does this, it shrieks at you. This ant, you see, can shriek.

It's called a Bullet Ant because its 'unusually severe' sting feels like getting shot. On the Schmidt Sting Index, Bullet Ants rate as the number one most try-not-to-sh**-out-your-spine painful in the entirety of the Kingdom Arthropoda.

Also--and we do feel the need to stress this--they ****ing shriek at you before they attack.


Africanized Honey Bee (Apis mellifera scutellata)

From : South and Central America, the American Southwest





Why you must fear it:
You know how you can spot one of these? You can't. There is no physical way to determine the difference between an Africanized bee and a common European bee. None whatsoever.

You can, however, easily tell the difference based on their behavior. Regular bees will give you about nine seconds of being too close to the hive before deciding you're a threat and then attacking you. So it's pretty easy to just walk past them without any screams. And if you do get them after you, they'll consider you to be 'chased off' after about 300 feet.



Army or Soldier Ant (Eciton burchellii)

From:
The Amazon Basin. There's other subfamilies living in Asia and Africa, but these are the most notorious.





Why you must fear it:
By now, you will not be surprised to hear that these ants are, in fact, ****ing huge, with the soldiers reaching a half inch in length. You will also not be surprised to learn that they have massive, powerful, machete-like jaws half the length of the soldiers themselves. They're notorious for dismantling any living thing in their path, regardless of size. They're also completely blind, which for some reason makes the whole thing worse.



Bot Fly (family oestridae, genus and species varies)

From:
Most species found in Central and South America, some species found all over the world




Why you must fear it:
Oh boy. Ohhhhh boy. Okay, Bot flies.

There are dozens of varieties of Bot Fly, they're each highly adapted to target a specific animal, they have delightfully descriptive names like Horse Stomach Bot Fly, Sheep Nose Bot Fly and, hey, guess what. One of them is called Human Bot Fly.

They each have a different and elaborate reproductive cycle, all of which end with a fat, half-inch maggot embedded in living flesh. Feeding.

Horse Stomach Bots, for example, lay their eggs in grass. Horses eat the grass. And the eggs. Which hatch in the heat of the horse's mouth. Upon which they chew through the horse's tongue and burrow, through the horse, into its belly. Where they meet up and dig honeycombs into the horse's stomach. And get fat. When they're ready to be flies, they just let go and get pooped out of the system.

The Human Bot Fly lays its eggs on a horsefly or a mosquito, something that will attempt to land on a human. This carrier finds a human and lands on him or her. The eggs rub off onto the human, whose body heat hatches the eggs. The larvae drop onto the skin and burrow right the **** in. Where they live. Under your skin. Eating.

OOOH, I'M SOOOO SCARED! *Sees a bot fly* HHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and to think we humans are supposed to be at the top of the food-chain...?

the last one scared me.. damn.. anywho.. Thanks for the info.

Nice.

Of these, the only one that's really a threat is the bot fly and that's only from the chance of infection left by the abcess after the larva leaves. The hornet is painful but not fatal at all unless you're allergic, same with the bullet ant. The black bulldog ant from australia is more dangerous to people. Africanized honey bees are way overblown and haven't been responsible for any known human deaths aside from people who are allergic. Army ants have never killed and are incapable of killing a human.

I'd through the funnel web spider in their amongst quite a few other spiders as they can kill folks who aren't allergic to them. Strictly speaking the mosquito is the most deadly insect on the planet because it spreads malaria which is responsible for millions of deaths each year.

I've seen a couple of videos where they extract bot fly larvae from people's backs.. its the grossest thing, ever. But I'm surprised there aren't any spiders on that list.

I once saw a documentary where a lady had a bot fly larvae in her head, and you could actually see it move under her skin
She also had a small hole in her head, and every now and then you could see the larvae moving under her skin, through the hole. Before it could be extracted, the woman had to take some sort of medication that killed the larvae. She had to take this medication for a while, so she actually spent her days knowing that there was a bug in her head, feeding on her flesh. When it finally died, the doctor pulled it out with some tweezers.
It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

The worlds deadliest spider is either the Brazilian Wandering Spider and or the Australian Funnel Web Spider(?)



Brazilian Wandering Spider:
They are not only extremely venomous but also very fast and aggressive, and won't hesitate to bite!



Aussie Funnel Web Spider:
Males of this large, aggressive, Australian species have the most toxic venom of all spiders. Painful bites can release a neurotoxin that could kill a person within 15 minutes; quick treatment with anti-venom can prevent fatalities.

I found this part especially hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

That bot fly is nasty. I saw that show where they pulled the larvae out of the woman's head too. OMG forget the medication, I would have pulled that sucker out of my head the minute I found out it was there.

ewww.
the japanese hornet just struck me as reminiscent of the prehistoric ages. that would be scary to have the hive after you.
double ewww.
bot flies are the grossest parasitic insect on earth.
then of course, REBEL....
you HAD to post that hand didn't you.

*violently shudders*

Pic removed Watching Mother...i hate to see a woman shudders violently.

How do they know that this spider has the most toxic venom of all spiders? I thought it was the specific chemical makeup of the venom that makes humans react so extremely to it. The venom of the funnel web spider has virtually no effect on canines and felines. There's another spider (the brazilian tarantula or something like that) that has the exact opposite; it's venom is deadly to cats and dogs, but has no harmfull effects on humans.
So maybe there is no "most toxic venom". It really depends on the species the venom is used on.

Let's not forget the dangrous wood spider on drugs

Wood Spider Link

Ahhh man why did I read this?

LMAO

That was hilarious.

Could you kill all these insects by stamping on them, or squashing them with your hands. Not that i'd want to touch it, but they're really scary. I didn't know about bot flies. Thats amazing what they can do. I'd hate to be near them.

I bet!

I think this is the video of the Bot Fly everyone's talking about:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ydE2leuKA&feature=related

Here's another nasty one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=23eimVLAQ2c

Oh yeah! It wasn't medication, it was petroleum jelly
Oh god, why did I watch it again.......

I believe she actually kept the larvae in a bottle as a souvenir.

Ew. I'm never leaving the house ever again. If I do. I'll wear a hat or something.

Well that was interesting, a little sickening, but interesting....That second video really did me in........

Insects... I hate insects..

We have Japanese hornets all over the southern US and I HATE them! When you're on the lake in a boat they will hover about two to three feet in front of your face and if you move to the right they move to the right...if you move to the left they move to the left. I got one of those electrified tennis racket, bug killer thingies and they only stun them for a second so you have to move fast to kill them when they're down.

oooh gross.. can you imagine the mess they would make if you squished them with your shoe.. especially against a wall. not attractive.
im all for the peabeau, aerogard or the outdoor fogger

In the name of all that is good, why is this thread in existance!?!?! Better yet why are those bugs in existance!
*Runs and hides in the closet with baseball bat and electrified bug killer*

Are you sure you have the giant Japanese hornet "all over the southern US?"

Absolutely...they were imported to eat the beetle that was killing all the pine trees ready to be harvested to manufacture paper, which is a huge business here. The wood had to be burned so as not to infest the rest of the stock.

All due respect, I can't find anything on google or anywhere else these insects inhabit anywhere other than Asia. Can you provide any links? Thank you.

are you kidding? The post says where you have to look out for these things. Yes they are all true and there are many more one would want to avoid.

funnel web spider

We are we eat ****ing everything, if I knew I would not get tiny Bot fly larva I would eat them! I will let you know that I will eat
rattle snake, heck, snake bacon is wonderful. Give me some bugs that will not kill me (or if the poison is removed), I will eat ,em.

The post mentions Japan, not the southern regions of the US. Again, all due respect, but I don't believe the poster claiming Japanese Giant Hornets inhabit the southern US is correct. Can you verify? I'm not kidding.

here are 3 to FEAR!!!!!

the deadliest insect in the world is the assassin bug pictured here



here is a VERY deadly scorpion, the fat tailed scorpion, the ones that glow in blacklight



and last but NOT least, the funnel web spider


but i personally like the trap door spider


here are some interesting insects
praying mantis

camel spider

i hate spiders but the black widow is a beautiful spider


and the MOST hated insect of mine.... the TICK

To the previous poster, you seem to have some problem with the definition of "insect."

sorry man, i posted the deadliest insect... the assassin bug. the rest i just posted either because they are cool or deadly. i know what an arachnid is and an insect, don't question my intelligence. you could've said those are pretty cool insects and arachnids. my god try to say im basically stupid over a bug topic. how stupid lol

but anyay i was just posting insects and other things i thought were neat

Why are you questioning everyone's post's....Everyone is welcome to post what they feel is revelant to the topic, and even if it goes OT once in awhile it's still interesting read......

ewwwwww.....my body freaks when i see that botfly...i can tolerate crawling insects but flyinh aaw it hurtz

I need an army of frogs, fishes, and anteaters

Freaky pictures. I seriously hate spiders.

This one time I saw a blackwidow spider. I told my dad & he didn't believe me. But he killed it though. >.>

I can't provide any links because it wasn't something that Bowater (the paper mill) wanted advertised. My husband worked there as an independent contractor when we first started noticing the hornets in the '80's. He took one of the hornets in to the entomologist they have on staff to be identified and was told that they imported them to kill the Southern Pine Beetle. At the time it was off the record but has since become common knowledge, in this part of the country, due to the thousands of employees and sightings.

Oh my GOD why did I look at the vido.......why am I still looking at all these pictures of bugs........GOD I HATE SPIDERS!!!!!!!!

I hate them to, but only if they are near me or I find one walking on me without me noticing until it suprises me

In soviet russia, goliath birding spider eats YOU

Ouch, I wouldn't want to annoy one of those things. hoping they didn't they squirt out any venom or other nasty stuff onto you...

Thank you for clarifying.

I don't know what you are on about. I went back and looked at the op and can't find it where you claim the OP states the Japanese hornet roams the southern U.S. Maybe I'm just blind.

Dont worry, I have your backs:

psssst...it was me not the OP, ST.

Wipe off those glasses...