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Where Did These Creatures Go?


Brandy333

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When I was quite young in San Antonio, Tx my brother and I played a lot outside, and one creature we played with was a little black bug we called doodlebugs.   They had a hard segmented outside and rolled up into a little ball till they were put back down and crawled away.  About the worst they could do was pinch you a little but it didn't hurt.   Just a small bug that dwelled in the soil, but I guess they're gone by now.

Are the fireflies still around?   We'd catch them and turn them lose.   I heard many years ago the horned toads are gone.   The area we lived still had a lot of rural areas on the outskirts, and I remember people reporting bob cats in their yards, turtles, snakes, coons and skunks.   All those areas are all developed and heavily populated now.

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Doodle bugs are more commonly referred to as pill bugs. Gone? They're in the billions lol

Fireflies are definitely becoming increasingly  less common and pushed further into the wilderness

One animal I miss, and I'm sure no one else does, is the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. I'm 36 but I still remember you coming across one every so often, they're like royalty among rattlesnakes; huge, beautiful and majestic with extremely toxic venom

You hardly see woodpeckers anymore, either

 

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32 minutes ago, HandsomeGorilla said:

Doodle bugs are more commonly referred to as pill bugs. Gone? They're in the billions lol

Fireflies are definitely becoming increasingly  less common and pushed further into the wilderness

One animal I miss, and I'm sure no one else does, is the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. I'm 36 but I still remember you coming across one every so often, they're like royalty among rattlesnakes; huge, beautiful and majestic with extremely toxic venom

You hardly see woodpeckers anymore, either

 

I found an article about these pill bugs, and after reading it I'm irked we played with them.   The article says they're not an insect, but actually more related to crustaceans and that they breathe through gills.   And no, I don't miss those rattlesnakes.

http://blogpestcontrol.com/2014/01/5-fun-facts-about-pillbugs/#:~:text=5 Fun Facts About Pillbugs 1 Pillbugs Aren’t,Their Anus. 5 Pillbugs Eat Their Own Feces.

 

Edited by Brandy333
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Here in floriduh we called them rolliepollies i see about as msny as i ever did, im not a kid playing where they live as much as i did 50 years ago.

Fireflies i read doesnt adapt to human incursion very well so sadly they are thinning out, we never had horn toads but cuban lazards have taken out the anolis lizards here.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Brandy333 said:

I found an article about these pill bugs, and after reading it I'm irked we played with them.   The article says they're not an insect, but actually more related to crustaceans and that they breathe through gills.   And no, I don't miss those rattlesnakes.

http://blogpestcontrol.com/2014/01/5-fun-facts-about-pillbugs/#:~:text=5 Fun Facts About Pillbugs 1 Pillbugs Aren’t,Their Anus. 5 Pillbugs Eat Their Own Feces.

 

Most "bugs" have book lungs which to me are like gills,

If it makes you feel better cockroaches are related to lobsters or so i read.

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I miss Christmas Beetles, we used to have swarms of rhe b*****s. Now we’re lucky to have one.

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Well -- thankfully, fire ants, cockroaches, sugar ants and bed bugs are still around 8D

 

.

.

clarity: 

 

/sarc

Edited by Nosy.Matters
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15 minutes ago, the13bats said:

Here in floriduh we called them rolliepollies i see about as msny as i ever did, im not a kid playing where they live as much as i did 50 years ago.

Fireflies i read doesnt adapt to human incursion very well so sadly they are thinning out, we never had horn toads but cuban lazards have taken out the anolis lizards here.

 

 

I'm South Carolina, so we called them both rollypollies and doodlebugs lol 

I can't even imagine the ecological trauma Florida has experienced, what with almost anything being adaptable there, apparently... 

If a critter can't survive anywhere else, it can survive in Florida 

Edited by HandsomeGorilla
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17 minutes ago, the13bats said:

Most "bugs" have book lungs which to me are like gills,

If it makes you feel better cockroaches are related to lobsters or so i read.

No, (lol), that doesn't make me feel better,  YIKES!   

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7 minutes ago, HandsomeGorilla said:

I'm South Carolina, so we called them both rollypollies and doodlebugs lol 

I can't even imagine the ecological trauma Florida has experienced, what with almost anything being adaptable there, apparently... 

If a critter can't survive anywhere else, it can survive in Florida 

Here doodlebugs were ant lions.

Yeah, its wild here, i tell people for every indigenous species i wouldnt be surprised if there were 5 to 10 invaders.

iguanas are thick down south as are large snakes, you name it just about any reptile can live here, i saw a fairly large jackson chameleon high up a tree once, it likely was turned loose or escaped.

My porch is a gekko meeting place at night the lights attracts their dinner,

The lakes are full of basically any tropical fish sold because they get dumped out.

And of course skunkapes are based on apes and monkeys that were turned out or escaped i saw ape road kill myself in the mid 80s over on the Titusville coast .

20190910_084454-500x523.jpg.02e16b30f21d31c8cc6d2f90211580fa.jpg

I saved him/her one night when i was cleaning the porch.

Oddly it asked me about my auto insurance.

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6 minutes ago, the13bats said:

Here doodlebugs were ant lions.

Yeah, its wild here, i tell people for every indigenous species i wouldnt be surprised if there were 5 to 10 invaders.

iguanas are thick down south as are large snakes, you name it just about any reptile can live here, i saw a fairly large jackson chameleon high up a tree once, it likely was turned loose or escaped.

My porch is a gekko meeting place at night the lights attracts their dinner,

The lakes are full of basically any tropical fish sold because they get dumped out.

And of course skunkapes are based on apes and monkeys that were turned out or escaped i saw ape road kill myself in the mid 80s over on the Titusville coast .

20190910_084454-500x523.jpg.02e16b30f21d31c8cc6d2f90211580fa.jpg

I saved him/her one night when i was cleaning the porch.

Oddly it asked me about my auto insurance.

Ha, for geckos, we have Mediterranean House Geckos. They can and do live everywhere and are apparently pretty damn prolific as 90% of the time they're little babies scampering around like adorable ass little cockroaches. And yes, any time there are lights at night, both they and the tree frogs come creeping

I'm a reptiles and arachnids guy, so I've heard plenty about how adaptable Florida seems to be lol...if it can't live in the north, it can live in the middle. If it can't live in in the middle, in can live in the keys. We have a subtropical climate ourself, we're not far behind becoming host to all sorts of new fauna 

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In the 80s a had iguanas 2 different times but gave them away to people who gave them more attention, years later one was hugh lived in a converted swimming pool.

I hope the feral ones make up this far.

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