I've encountered all of the listed animals, except hippos, in the wild and not had issues with fear and loathing. I wasn't really thinking of them, but seeing @Pavlov 's answer reminds me that people can be really scary... much more so than any animal.
I used to be terrified of wasps until I finally got stung and realized I didn't die. Now I mean I don't go looking for them, but I will no longer look extremely silly trying to dodge them when they're 3 feet away.
@djslack I'm 29 and I've still never been stung by a bee or a wasp...I have a lot of allergies. They don't scare me, but the thought of being stung does. Who knows if I'd survive.
@Thumperchick Hornets are wasps with an agenda. I had one building a nest on the garage. Shot her with the hornet spray, she launched after me like a bullet. I take off running, and after 10-15 feet she literally just fell straight down dead. No twitching, did not even angle downwards in flight. Just shut off dead and dropped.
@Thumperchick It depends on the wasp. Around here, black wasps and mud wasps are easy to get along with. I can walk right under a nest with no problem, while the wasps are good at nabbing the bugs and caterpillars eating the rose bushes. Unfortunately, their cousins the red wasps and hornets just seem to attack for no logical reason. They get hunted down and nests sprayed, because I do need to mow the yard on occasion without being dive-bombed. I'm all for peaceful coexistence, but if they start a war ...
Spiders. Spiders terrify me. Like I'm a blubbering mess if they're larger than a dime.
I hate yellow jackets and wasps, but I don't lose my shit over them. Japenese Hornets, on the other hand, will send me screaming into the house. At my mother's house they target me. For years, no one believed me until one afternoon we were all out on her porch and I heard one coming. It buzzed me and I ran for the door. After I got inside, it kept coming and hitting the storm door over and over, completely ignoring everyone still on the porch. Thankfully, I've not seen any where I live now.
Afraid isn't exactly the right word as they pose no immediate threat, but they freak me out. I grew up in Michigan. We do not have a prevalent cockroach issue in Michigan. I never saw one until I was 19. And damn those f***ers are creepy as shit. I'm allergic to them, they carry diseases, they go after your food, and they only lurk around in the wee hours of the night. Plus, you can't easily squish them (without all that crunching).
Oh and did you know they can live without their heads for up to a couple weeks? They breathe through their sides so they don't die until starvation or thirst kicks in. WTF!?! Kind of cool I guess. But. Just no.
@Zypher Here in South Carolina we have big cockroaches. One night I was quietly reading and I heard one drop to the carpet behind me. I slowly turned to look and he froze as we stared at each other. When I turned back to get up from the chair he ran for it and it was game on! I did finally catch it and dispatched it. I still think they will be the last creature on Earth after the Apocalypse.
@Fish_Kungfu Yeah I hear ya...I went to college in Georgia. That was where I witnessed my first of many cockroaches.
We had individual bathrooms in our dorms. So I went into the shower area one day and started the water, then got ready to get in. I tested the water with my hand, and then looked up and saw this long hair stuck to the wall by the shower head. Except then it started moving and was clearly attached to something. Out emerged a very large cockroach and its very long antennas. I flipped. Ran out. Shut the door. Taped the door shut with painters tape. Allll the way around. Got dressed. Then went to seek help. Never found the sucker.
@FredWallace18 Eh, dogs are like people. You get a couple assholes, but the vast majority are pretty awesome. Wasps, spiders, and the like, just want to scare you and cause maximum damage. True story.
@FroodyFrog are you trying to get me to quit? I'll just make @mehcus or @moose open presents from now on. On second thought, that's probably not a good idea.
Are you talking about like worms or something? I'm not as bothered by them but still not a huge fan.
@hollboll But... but what about pillbugs? I swear everyone I know that hates bugs will admit they're kind of cute. The way they roll up when scared, like an armadillo. So adorable!
@hollboll Our part of Michigan has been invaded by an asian ladybug that bites and stink. They are far more likely to swarm inside houses than the native ladybugs.
Ladybugs were a lot cuter before I encountered stinky orange and black piles of pain inside the house.
Okay, my experience with horses didn't cause me to lose any part of my body, but as a kid I was at the farm in Iowa (my parents sent me back each year) and I was on a horse and a horsefly bit me. It was incredibly painful and I never wanted to be around another horse because horseflies.
And like a lot of irrational fears, it just never went away. They're beautiful animals, but so are lions and tigers and bears.
Bugs; any and all I hate them, words cant describe my fear of them. I think it's because how small they are, how then can crawl all over you... and their LEGS oh god they have so many!
It used to be wasps, particularly yellow jackets, and the paper wasp that looks like a yellow jacket. I got stung 13 times on my ankles after accidentally stepping on a yellow jacket nest. We had nests all over the property. Yellow jackets in the ground, their evil cousins hanging from every structure.
The next spring, a couple of barn swallows built a nest over our front door. 2 chicks the first year. They keep coming back year after year. They eat wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, and many more insects of about that size. The wasp nests rarely get more than an inch across before the wasps are all eaten.
I love barn swallows, even though the young ones make a huge bird poop mess on the porch under their nest. Twice a year, after the chicks fledge and fly away, we clean off the rubber mat under the nest, and we are good until the next brood. 13 stings vs bird poop. The choice was obvious.
We had been using a wasp spray that contained mint oil, shampoo, and seltzer water. Wasps breath through their skin. So a thin film of soap bubble will suffocate them. Mint oil is toxic to wasps, but not people or birds. The seltzer water made it spray.
It was about the same cost per can as the stuff that would give me headaches when I used it, and when I entered a space where I had used it within the last few days. The headache stuff was much more potent per spray, so a single can lasted a long time. The mint oil stuff required much larger doses, but it left a pile of minty fresh dead wasps, not a fog of headache inducing poison.
I have some cans left, because I was buying it online in bulk. Then the wasp population crashed, so I don't have anything to use it on.
@hamjudo I use peppermint oil with castile soap and water, spraying at night after they have come home to the nest. ( I never thought about using seltzer water! Great idea! ) I usually find the fallen aviators gone the next morning, eaten by skunks. I like to think the peppermint works like a mouthwash for skunkyness, but ..alas.. it is treating the wrong end.
@hamjudo I used to use carb cleaner spray with the tube (because I had it, and outdoors only obviously); it would reach out 10 feet or so and wasps it hit dropped within a second or two. Then the EPA banned the good stuff, and the new stuff just pisses off the wasps and annoys the cruft you're trying to remove from the carburetor...
@rockblossom I dug a nest out of the ground late one evening. It was the size of a cantaloupe. There were multiple layers filled with wasp larvae.
The next morning when it was light, I went out to take a picture of it. There was nothing left but little shreds of nest material. Something had a big meal of mint flavored wasp larvae.
I like having the barn swallows take care of the wasps for me. If you are going to use carb cleaner on wasps, at least look for a brand that is labeled, "safe for birds".
@hamjudo We tried relying on the native birds around here but there's so overfed by the bird-ladies (at least all I've seen have been ladies) that they have no interest in working for a meal, much less one that stings.
So its spray or nothing. The old carb cleaner was declared to be a so-called "ozone depleter" but it evaporated in minutes with no residue. The wasps shriveled up like they had been dehydrated (as opposed to getting a nerve toxin like many insecticides and jerking for minutes). The new EPA approved stuff (which I don't use for anything since its no good for anything but wasting money and stinking) is petroleum distillates and leaves a greasy residue that I'm certain would be bad for birds even though it didn't seem to faze the wasps.
So now we use bug spray and run after spraying because it takes a while for the bugs to give up and die.
I remember having wasps make a huge tunnel from an exterior window pane on the upper level of my mom's place all the way down to the basement. I shot a solid stream of death spray into their exit and basically soaked all those suckers who were inside. I was rewarded with a wasp graveyard in the basement.
freakiest thing? weeks later there was a blackout and I needed to check the circuit breaker in the basement, so I went down there with a flashlight. turns out that when I shined the light on them, THEY STILL FUCKING MOVED. WEEKS OF DEATH AND THEY WERE STILL... ALIVE?
@Al_Coholic Also, does the mandoline thingy from that chip set count? After reading about how many people annihilated their fingers trying to use it I've been too afraid to even open mine. Sounds more dangerous than any of the animals listed here...
Monitor lizard. They will hunt you down (fast) then bite you. Then leisurely track you down by the smell of your rotting flesh. Oh my god. I live right next to alligators and cockroaches. We have the scary brown recluse spiders here in Tampa, FL that leave cavernous rotting holes in your flesh after they bite...not as scary as monitor lizard
Also earlier this year, bees made their nest in the walls of my home in February. I had 1000s of bees in the walls and INSIDE my home (in less than 24 hrs). Had to pay to have the nest killed. While I love bees and am sad that I killed the hive that found a hole in my house (and around a window that let them fly into my house) - I have to say killer bees are scary as fuck. Pray they never find you or a loved one. The Bee killing man told some terrifying stories.
Other than that...bot flies that lay eggs in your forehead....whoa wtf?.. That's what happened in Honduras after the floods from the hurricane.
Other Homo sapiens. They have been known to do some really, really stupid shit.
@Pavlov
I wasn't sure if they counted, so i didn't mention them. But yeah, they're scary, and the most dangerous species on this planet.
I've encountered all of the listed animals, except hippos, in the wild and not had issues with fear and loathing. I wasn't really thinking of them, but seeing @Pavlov 's answer reminds me that people can be really scary... much more so than any animal.
@Pavlov this is the best answer
@katylava
Squirrels.
because of rabies.
don't judge me.
@christinerenee Yeah but it is fat squirrel season.
@MEHcus still scary... but kinda cute too
No.1 Threat.... Stripper Bears
@thismyusername - Says Stephen ColBEAR.
Ticks, the most dangerous animal in the woods, or the meadow, or even your surban back yard. (Think Lyme disease)
@melliott Ticks...
@melliott
Politicians. Always.
Bees can kill me, cuz I'm allergic... So I'm going with bees.
@bigbo2003
I used to be terrified of wasps until I finally got stung and realized I didn't die. Now I mean I don't go looking for them, but I will no longer look extremely silly trying to dodge them when they're 3 feet away.
@djslack I'm 29 and I've still never been stung by a bee or a wasp...I have a lot of allergies. They don't scare me, but the thought of being stung does. Who knows if I'd survive.
Wasps are assholes. Tiny. Angry. Sadistic. Assholes.
@Thumperchick And they're in my chimney.
@jqubed You should set it on fire and leave.
@Thumperchick Wasps are leading the polls! I did not know there was such a wasps epidemic!
@Thumperchick Hornets are wasps with an agenda. I had one building a nest on the garage. Shot her with the hornet spray, she launched after me like a bullet. I take off running, and after 10-15 feet she literally just fell straight down dead. No twitching, did not even angle downwards in flight. Just shut off dead and dropped.
@Thumperchick It depends on the wasp. Around here, black wasps and mud wasps are easy to get along with. I can walk right under a nest with no problem, while the wasps are good at nabbing the bugs and caterpillars eating the rose bushes. Unfortunately, their cousins the red wasps and hornets just seem to attack for no logical reason. They get hunted down and nests sprayed, because I do need to mow the yard on occasion without being dive-bombed. I'm all for peaceful coexistence, but if they start a war ...
Like I'm going to reveal that information. I've read 1984!
Dolphins
@togle rapey bastards!
@Thumperchick Exactly. Theyre evil
Spiders. Spiders terrify me. Like I'm a blubbering mess if they're larger than a dime.
I hate yellow jackets and wasps, but I don't lose my shit over them. Japenese Hornets, on the other hand, will send me screaming into the house. At my mother's house they target me. For years, no one believed me until one afternoon we were all out on her porch and I heard one coming. It buzzed me and I ran for the door. After I got inside, it kept coming and hitting the storm door over and over, completely ignoring everyone still on the porch. Thankfully, I've not seen any where I live now.
@PurplePawprints
@thismyusername I LOVE jumping spiders! They are so cool!
@thismyusername I wish spiders were that useful.
@Al_Coholic they are... cheap and safe pest control.
Hippos are filthy, filthy creatures
Sharks.
Cockroaches.
Afraid isn't exactly the right word as they pose no immediate threat, but they freak me out. I grew up in Michigan. We do not have a prevalent cockroach issue in Michigan. I never saw one until I was 19. And damn those f***ers are creepy as shit. I'm allergic to them, they carry diseases, they go after your food, and they only lurk around in the wee hours of the night. Plus, you can't easily squish them (without all that crunching).
Oh and did you know they can live without their heads for up to a couple weeks? They breathe through their sides so they don't die until starvation or thirst kicks in. WTF!?! Kind of cool I guess. But. Just no.
@Zypher Here in South Carolina we have big cockroaches. One night I was quietly reading and I heard one drop to the carpet behind me. I slowly turned to look and he froze as we stared at each other. When I turned back to get up from the chair he ran for it and it was game on! I did finally catch it and dispatched it. I still think they will be the last creature on Earth after the Apocalypse.
@Fish_Kungfu Yeah I hear ya...I went to college in Georgia. That was where I witnessed my first of many cockroaches.
We had individual bathrooms in our dorms. So I went into the shower area one day and started the water, then got ready to get in. I tested the water with my hand, and then looked up and saw this long hair stuck to the wall by the shower head. Except then it started moving and was clearly attached to something. Out emerged a very large cockroach and its very long antennas. I flipped. Ran out. Shut the door. Taped the door shut with painters tape. Allll the way around. Got dressed. Then went to seek help. Never found the sucker.
Well cows now, sheesh
Clowns. Clowns are just... creepy
@Steve7654
Butterflies, anyone?
@Bandrik Butterflies are one of my least favorite animals. I believe it is mostly because of their erratic flight patterns.
Fucking stinkbugs, man. Yeah, sure, they can't bite me or whatever. They still freak me the fuck out.
@marklog it's so cute! <3
@marklog It took me way too long to get this. I kept waiting for the picture to load.
@marklog Baybee keet-un!
Can't believe I'm in the minority putting dogs here--they're the one ones on the list that have ever seriously harmed me.
@FredWallace18 Eh, dogs are like people. You get a couple assholes, but the vast majority are pretty awesome. Wasps, spiders, and the like, just want to scare you and cause maximum damage. True story.
Any kind of bug at all. Ladybug, butterfly, spider, you name it. I don't want any bug near me ever.
@hollboll
Really?
Ladybugs aren't so really. I once had an infestation of them by my house and it wasn't so bad...
They were more of a distraction really.
@FroodyFrog yeah, any kind of bug at all. I think it's the legs that bother me the most.
@hollboll
You shouldn't have said that.
You just gave me an idea.
@Thumperchick guess i know what I'm spending the money on which i would have used for a penguin on.
@hollboll
Out of curiosity, what about invertebrates and their close relatives?
@FroodyFrog are you trying to get me to quit? I'll just make @mehcus or @moose open presents from now on. On second thought, that's probably not a good idea.
Are you talking about like worms or something? I'm not as bothered by them but still not a huge fan.
@hollboll
I was thinking more like millipedes.
@hollboll
And of course I'm not trying to get you to quit. That's not in my best interest.
@hollboll I like presents
@FroodyFrog definitely not down for millipedes. Look at those gross little legs.
@hollboll Watch THIS. Enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving!
@hollboll But... but what about pillbugs? I swear everyone I know that hates bugs will admit they're kind of cute. The way they roll up when scared, like an armadillo. So adorable!
@hollboll millipedes freak me the hell out. More than spiders. It's definitely the legs.
@hollboll Our part of Michigan has been invaded by an asian ladybug that bites and stink. They are far more likely to swarm inside houses than the native ladybugs.
Ladybugs were a lot cuter before I encountered stinky orange and black piles of pain inside the house.
Horses.
@lisaviolet I know 3 people who have had at least part of an ear bitten off by a horse. Don't trust them.
@Aquaman Word. -nodding head-
@lisaviolet -wiggles ear-
@Aquaman
Okay, my experience with horses didn't cause me to lose any part of my body, but as a kid I was at the farm in Iowa (my parents sent me back each year) and I was on a horse and a horsefly bit me. It was incredibly painful and I never wanted to be around another horse because horseflies.
And like a lot of irrational fears, it just never went away. They're beautiful animals, but so are lions and tigers and bears.
Crabs. They hide under rocks or sometimes look like rocks and they're mean little bastards. Except horseshoe crabs, those are cool.
Bugs; any and all
I hate them, words cant describe my fear of them. I think it's because how small they are, how then can crawl all over you... and their LEGS oh god they have so many!
@Cave I've finally found someone who agrees with me!
It used to be wasps, particularly yellow jackets, and the paper wasp that looks like a yellow jacket. I got stung 13 times on my ankles after accidentally stepping on a yellow jacket nest. We had nests all over the property. Yellow jackets in the ground, their evil cousins hanging from every structure.
The next spring, a couple of barn swallows built a nest over our front door. 2 chicks the first year. They keep coming back year after year. They eat wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, and many more insects of about that size. The wasp nests rarely get more than an inch across before the wasps are all eaten.
I love barn swallows, even though the young ones make a huge bird poop mess on the porch under their nest. Twice a year, after the chicks fledge and fly away, we clean off the rubber mat under the nest, and we are good until the next brood. 13 stings vs bird poop. The choice was obvious.
We had been using a wasp spray that contained mint oil, shampoo, and seltzer water. Wasps breath through their skin. So a thin film of soap bubble will suffocate them. Mint oil is toxic to wasps, but not people or birds. The seltzer water made it spray.
It was about the same cost per can as the stuff that would give me headaches when I used it, and when I entered a space where I had used it within the last few days. The headache stuff was much more potent per spray, so a single can lasted a long time. The mint oil stuff required much larger doses, but it left a pile of minty fresh dead wasps, not a fog of headache inducing poison.
I have some cans left, because I was buying it online in bulk. Then the wasp population crashed, so I don't have anything to use it on.
I guess that is why they stopped selling it.
@hamjudo I use peppermint oil with castile soap and water, spraying at night after they have come home to the nest. ( I never thought about using seltzer water! Great idea! ) I usually find the fallen aviators gone the next morning, eaten by skunks. I like to think the peppermint works like a mouthwash for skunkyness, but ..alas.. it is treating the wrong end.
@hamjudo I used to use carb cleaner spray with the tube (because I had it, and outdoors only obviously); it would reach out 10 feet or so and wasps it hit dropped within a second or two. Then the EPA banned the good stuff, and the new stuff just pisses off the wasps and annoys the cruft you're trying to remove from the carburetor...
@rockblossom I dug a nest out of the ground late one evening. It was the size of a cantaloupe. There were multiple layers filled with wasp larvae.
The next morning when it was light, I went out to take a picture of it. There was nothing left but little shreds of nest material. Something had a big meal of mint flavored wasp larvae.
@duodec I'm with the EPA on that one.
I like having the barn swallows take care of the wasps for me. If you are going to use carb cleaner on wasps, at least look for a brand that is labeled, "safe for birds".
@hamjudo We tried relying on the native birds around here but there's so overfed by the bird-ladies (at least all I've seen have been ladies) that they have no interest in working for a meal, much less one that stings.
So its spray or nothing. The old carb cleaner was declared to be a so-called "ozone depleter" but it evaporated in minutes with no residue. The wasps shriveled up like they had been dehydrated (as opposed to getting a nerve toxin like many insecticides and jerking for minutes). The new EPA approved stuff (which I don't use for anything since its no good for anything but wasting money and stinking) is petroleum distillates and leaves a greasy residue that I'm certain would be bad for birds even though it didn't seem to faze the wasps.
So now we use bug spray and run after spraying because it takes a while for the bugs to give up and die.
I remember having wasps make a huge tunnel from an exterior window pane on the upper level of my mom's place all the way down to the basement. I shot a solid stream of death spray into their exit and basically soaked all those suckers who were inside. I was rewarded with a wasp graveyard in the basement.
freakiest thing? weeks later there was a blackout and I needed to check the circuit breaker in the basement, so I went down there with a flashlight. turns out that when I shined the light on them, THEY STILL FUCKING MOVED. WEEKS OF DEATH AND THEY WERE STILL... ALIVE?
(س ಥ⌂ಥ)س
@Lotsofgoats Zombie wasps.
RATS ! Both the TWO LEG and four legged kind!
Drop bears.
Sharks with frikkin' laser beams on their heads.
Snakes. the one area where i'm like Indiana Jones.
also, had I been on THAT MF'n plane, I'd have Shat myself and screamed like a Little Girl.
That's easy.. I fear my ex-mother-in-law.. She's a scary old viper.
Bees... terrified.... followed by @jaremelz ;)
@sohmageek The
and I got together, and
@jaremelz I'm cured!
Who would have thought you could fix me ;)
@sohmageek Who'd have thought it? Normally, I just break people.
@jaremelz hard to break what's already broken :)
I would have to say this Thing...
I wanted to make a racist joke but I'm afraid I'd get in trouble.
@Al_Coholic Also, does the mandoline thingy from that chip set count? After reading about how many people annihilated their fingers trying to use it I've been too afraid to even open mine. Sounds more dangerous than any of the animals listed here...
Drunk humans in cars.
Living in the Midwest; I have an irrational fear of alligators.
Monitor lizard. They will hunt you down (fast) then bite you. Then leisurely track you down by the smell of your rotting flesh.
Oh my god. I live right next to alligators and cockroaches. We have the scary brown recluse spiders here in Tampa, FL that leave cavernous rotting holes in your flesh after they bite...not as scary as monitor lizard
Also earlier this year, bees made their nest in the walls of my home in February. I had 1000s of bees in the walls and INSIDE my home (in less than 24 hrs). Had to pay to have the nest killed. While I love bees and am sad that I killed the hive that found a hole in my house (and around a window that let them fly into my house) - I have to say killer bees are scary as fuck. Pray they never find you or a loved one. The Bee killing man told some terrifying stories.
Other than that...bot flies that lay eggs in your forehead....whoa wtf?.. That's what happened in Honduras after the floods from the hurricane.