Thursday, July 29, 2010

Texas Transition part 2: They are bigger


I know that they say everything is bigger in Texas, but that is not totally true. It is just that once you get down here, you realize that all of the bugs are HUGE. They are so large in fact that change the names once they reach a certain size. Like a roach is actually called a "waterbug" once it is large enough that you might not be able to kill it with a baseball bat (that is not a joke - scared the crap out of me when it tried to crawl away after I beat it). Now why it becomes a "waterbug" when it actually is just a big freaking cockroach - I don't know. But they are gross.

But the really terrifying things are the Field Spiders and Wolf Spiders here... That image above is about life size. The first one I saw was well and truly the size of my palm, she was on the back porch and I decided to name her Shelob (10 points to anyone that gets that joke). I thought she was large enough that I should domesticate her and keep her as a watch animal in the back. But beware they jump... and they are really fast... and I only had a wood spoon... and I had to put a bell on my child to make sure I would know when they have carried him off. Seriously though, there is nothing as creepy as having one of these behemoths crawl across your foot. Ugh! Also, please note that they are large enough that you DO feel it when they bite. It hurts.

So come on down to Texas and see the freaky wildlife.

1 comment:

brandonjw said...

Great, Jeff... Thanks for scaring my wife such that she says we'd never live in Texas. :)