Hostess with the Mostess
There is a kind of parasitic wasp that’s quite efficient at finding a home for its eggs. They simply make a hole inside the eggs of a beetle and lay the eggs right there in their host. Talk about overstaying your welcome!
Poison Alehouse
A pub in Southampton, Hampshire, in England, was the unsuspecting home to what the Daily Mail called a “record-breaking infestation”—a gigantic wasp nest 6 feet by 5 feet, with 500,000 stingers inside. Bet drinks were on the house the night the bartender stumbled upon that load of venom. As their neighbors to the west might say when raising a toast, May the road rise up to meet you so you can get the hell out of that bar!
Android Ant
You may not be a huge ant fan, but it’s still kind of too bad that there’s a kind of fungi that can literally get inside their brains and turn them into zombies.
Queen-Size Bed
The termite queen is a productive leader, laying up to 8,000 eggs a day. The gelatinous creature can live up to half a century, even though she can’t move. (Her tiny legs can’t carry the weight of her enormous, goopy body.)
Leftover Lunch
When your parents remind you that spiders get rid of flies and other pests, you may agree to let the arthropod go on its merry way under the couch or behind the curtain. Still, it would be nice if they cleaned up after themselves instead of leaving ant carcasses all around the house.
Did You Know? In 2011, Arizona State University hosted an Ugly Bug Contest with a western theme. The Seed Beetle took first prize. The Flower Beetle (a misleading name, we’re guessing?) was a close second.
Mellow Yellow
Have you ever seen the yellow residue left by ladybugs, maybe on your finger after you’ve been holding one? It’s blood. The colorful critters release it as a defense mechanism. The smell keeps predators away.
All the Bugs You Can Eat
Spiders each gulp down about 2,000 pesky insects a year. Flies are a favorite meal, but some eat really big stuff. Tarantulas, for example, eat mice. Good to know if you’re planning to keep either one as a pet.
Did You Know? A fishing spider feeds on small fish. We’d like to see that! Actually, we wouldn’t. But it sounds riveting in a nauseating way. These spiders don’t make webs to trap their prey, but they do make webs—for their young. Because of the care they take doing that, they’re also somewhat affectionately known as nursery web spiders.
Home Away from Home
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” used to be a cute little rhyme for tucking toddlers in bed at night. Like “See you later, alligator”, the speaker didn’t actually mean to allude to the potential threat of any invasive or dangerous creature lurking around. But, bedbug infestations have exploded in recent years. Paranoid travelers will want to inspect their hotel rooms for bed bugs before unpacking their stuff. Use a flashlight and peer under the mattress, looking around the seams in particular and any other places the critters could hide. Besides live bugs, the Environmental Protection Agency says to search for: bedbug poop, red stains, tiny white eggs and shells, and skins (apparently they shed at some point in their life cycle).
Be an Expert! Like mosquitoes, bedbugs feed on the blood of humans. They’re a pain in the neck (and other parts of the body), but fortunately, they’re not known to spread disease.
The Bug Club
If creepy crawlies don’t bug you…then the Bug Club might be just the thing for you. Find the “Amateur Entomologist’s Society” online to join. Learn about the life cycles, body parts, and classification of your favorite bugs. And if your parents are still holding out on allowing a dog, cat, or even a gerbil, maybe you can sell them on a smaller pet with a few more feet (or none at all). On the Bug Club site, you’ll find care sheets for everything from caterpillars to scorpions to cockroaches. For more ideas on what to get, See World’s Grossest Pets
Be an Expert! Your pet tarantulas will be grateful for a snack of crickets and locusts. A giant millipede can be fed with compost made from kitchen scraps.
Great Balls of Fire!
Here’s more compelling proof that you don’t have to go further than nature to find stuff crazier than the most outrageous science fiction. During the honeybee mating ritual, the male genitalia explodes inside the female.
Did You Know? If you are feeding a spider live food, make sure to remove the food when it’s not mealtime. Otherwise the meal itself could turn the tables.
Shake-a-Leg (or 1,000)
Centipedes and millipedes are both arthropods. They look like worms, but they’re more like insects or crustaceans—though not the kind we’d like to shake hands with, even just one. Some millipedes release cyanide!
Be an Expert! Identify a millipede by the double pair of legs attached to each segment of its body (centipedes have only one pair per segment).
The New Beatles
Slime-mold beetles—the name alone catapults them into the realm of the extremely disgusting. When a batch of new species of these slimy-moldy insects was discovered, the entomologists in charge of their classification decided to honor George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld with the new names for three of the critters: Agathidium bushi Miller and Wheeler, Agathidium cheneyi Miller and Wheeler and Agathidium rumsfeldi Miller and Wheeler. There’s some esoteric trivia for you!
IN THE KNOW
Esoteric: understood only by experts or those with a specialized knowledge base
Off with His Head
Insect reproduction may be unpleasant enough on its own, but in case it’s too run-of-the-mill for your taste, why not throw a little cannibalism in there, just for good measure? The male praying mantis better get down on his knees and pray for mercy during courtship. In captivity at least, the female is known to bite off her partner’s head after reproduction.
Feces, It’s What’s for Dinner
When a fly decides to join your picnic, you really don’t know where it’s been before joining you. But flies aren’t the only ones who partake of gross things like poop on purpose. According to Brenna Lorenz’s popular website The Scoop on Poop, lots of organisms opt for fecal matter when it comes time to sit down to dinner: gorillas, dogs, and rabbits among them.
Did You Know? Stink bugs are gross on two counts: one, the smell they emit, and two, the fact that they can suck out the guts of other insects.
Spit it out
Yellow jackets and horne’s make their nests by mixing their saliva with pieces of wood fibers and bark. They really put themselves into their work.
Out, Out, Damn Tick
Ticks carry a wide range of blood-borne bacteria. If you find one on your skin, use tweezers to remove it. Try to grab it near the mouth rather than near the stomach. Pull straight to avoid breaking off pieces of the tick, which may then be harder to remove. Many people recommend saving the tick to show your doctor if need be, though most ticks are harmless. The kind that carries Lyme disease is, unfortunately, the tiniest—the size of a sesame seed—and extremely hard to spot.
Roses Are Red, and so Are Some Bugs
If you’re in the habit of reading the list of ingredients of the foods you consume or the makeup you wear, maybe you’ve heard of cochineal, carmine, or carminic acid. They sound harmlessly vague enough. Carmine is another word for a strong red color, like crimson, and also goes by the name natural red #4. All that seems okay. The problem is, these ingredients all come from the same thing—cochineals, which are—wait for it—insects! The beetlelike critters are found in Central and South America, crushed up, and then boiled to get the carminic acid that, once treated with alum, gives off that lovely red hue found in everything from blush to yogurt to ruby red grapefruit juice (or should we say grubby red?). On the plus side, beetles have a lot of protein.
Did You Know? You may be an entomophagist (someone who eats bugs, not to be confused with an entomologist, someone who studies them) and not even know it!
Four Eyes x 2
The fact that many spiders have
eight legs is no big deal. What’s weird is that many have the same number of eyes! So if you see one crawling across your wall, you can be sure it laid eyes on your first.
Hording Together
One or two locusts alone are fine. It’s the “swarm” that gets a little off-putting. Scientists are starting to understand what makes locusts—otherwise solitary creatures—band together into a flock. It may be related to the sudden swelling of a neurochemical we have in common, called serotonin. That happens during famine and may help the species survive by grouping together into what’s known as a “gregarious phase.” Is this the same phenomenon that accounts for the swarm of hungry dinner guests at a wedding buffet?
Did You Know? Forget climbing up the water spout. Some kinds of wolf spiders can actually walk on water.
Did You Know? A camel spider is not a spider; it’s a solpugid, also known as a wind scorpion. The nocturnal creatures aren’t poisonous, but they’re big (6 inches long) and can run faster that most of us, at 10 miles per hour. They’re also especially creepy because they often run behind people (but only because they want to stay in your shadow, out of the light).
Kissing Bug
Judging from the name kissing bug, it sounds like it must be something gentle and sweet like a ladybug or a butterfly, right? Far from it. Turns out it’s a bloodsucker that zeroes in on your mouth and eyes while you sleep.
Et Tu, Brutal Bug?
Assassin bug—the name alone will give you nightmares. And it’s apropos. The assassin bug stakes out a hiding spot from which to ambush its prey. Its sticky legs help then hold the victim while it is poisoned and then sucked from the inside out.
Phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile—these are the four components the ancient Greeks believed made up the human body. They called them “humors”. That word didn’t mean the same thing it means to us, but those ancient wise guys were on to something. They must have known that a couple millenniums later, spit, blood, barf, and crap would end up being the butt of many, many jokes.
Lose Your Lunch on Purpose
Oh, there’s nothing like piling your plate high at Thanksgiving with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and yams. Ever wish you weren’t so stuffed so you could dive in for round two? The ancient Romans had a solution—though not a very tidy one. They used to make themselves vomit so they could eat more. Not much of a palette cleanser! At least they had the decency to start again with new food, not like cats, which are known for reconsuming what they just upchucked. And, of course, there are the bird moms that feed their little ones a homemade puree of regurgitated food. Wolves are fans of repeats, too. (See The Last Supper, as in, the One You Just Had)
Did You Know? Ancient Romans used pee to wash their clothes. (No, and maybe you didn’t want to know…)
Feeling Torn
Female prisoners of the Thuringians, a German tribe, met an unlucky end. Each arm was tied around a different horse’s neck. Then the horses took off in opposite directions, and the victims got torn apart. In other documented cases of icky history, it was the horses themselves that received the bitter ending.
Call of the Wild Bluff
The remains of more than 100,000 unlucky bovines were found in a heap at the bottom of a cliff in what’s now France. Historians believe that ancient humans had developed a simple way to kill horses—chase them off an overhang and let them die by hitting the ground below. Hope no one was out for a quiet stroll below the cliffs.
Did You Know? President Theodore Roosevelt once watched piranhas devour a cow down to its bones. In his book Through the Brazilian Wilderness, he paints a colorful picture of what he calls “the most ferocious fish in the world” and the “rabid, furious snaps of its teeth”.
Bender Contenders
It was hard to tell if F. Velez Campos was coming or going at any given time. Campos was a contortionist who could bend his knees in either direction. Another flexible fellow was Martin Joe Laurello, who could spin his head 180 degrees. These guys would have made terrific gang members in movies. The chase scenes alone would be enough to earn their keep.
Did You Know? A woman once had a 37-foot tapeworm removed from her stomach. How did it get there? She must have consumed an infected piece of meat that was not thoroughly cooked. Better to err on the safe side: order meat well done rather than rare.
If You Build It, They Will Come… Unless They’re Already Dead and You’re Building It with Their Skeletons
We’ve got a recommendation for a new stop on your next grisly European tour….Outside Prague, in the Czech Republic, there’s a skeleton cathedral featuring chalices, crosses, and columns—all made of human bones. When dead bodies piled up due to a plague and various wars, mass graves overflowed. Rather than trying to find a new place to store them, church leaders put them to good use in the building of the church.
Did You Know? In crowded cities, it’s hard enough to find enough room for people to live in, let alone die. There were traditionally cemeteries adjacent to the church, but after a plague or two, those things were packed to the rafters. This gave rise to the suburban garden cemetery, where Victorians liked to picnic and spend a leisurely Sunday afternoon.
Everybody Multitasks
We all agree that the presidential office should be treated with dignity and respect. It might be a little hard to refrain from junior-high humor, though, if the president insists on meetings while he’s on the john. Supposedly Lyndon B. Johnson was a fan of just this kind of multitasking, as staff members were instructed to stand outside the door. (We’re glad they weren’t invited in! That would take it one step too far.)
Anything for Beauty, Literally
Maria Callas was said to have intentionally eaten a tapeworm to assist with her diet. Besides the gross factor of having a tapeworm in your tummy, there are some rather unpleasant side effects, including diarrhea, anemia, and liver disease. We’d recommend diet and exercise instead.
Look out Below!
“Bathroom language” is something we try to avoid in polite company. But once upon a time, there were no bathrooms to speak of. People simply went in pots and dumped it out the window, sending a warning to passersby below. (Don’t worry, the waste eventually made its way to the sewer.)
Ghastly Extraction
In the 1800s, surgeons used a “tonsil guillotine” to remove tonsils. They were generally pretty adept at dislodging the lymphoid tissue, but often gave their patients a royal case of hemorrhaging at the same time.
Let my Blood Go
Bloodletting: the ancient medical practice, a description of which is generally followed by the “Aren’t you glad you’re alive now?” rhetorical question. Bloodletting was the practice of deliberately drawing blood from a patient in the hopes that it would heal him or her and was used to treat a wide range of maladies. It was recommended as late as 1923. We’re trying to imagine the conversation in the operating room:
Look out—we hear bloodletting is making a comeback.
Man’s Best Friend to the End
In Medieval times, the brains of dogs were routinely used to dress wounds. Your guess is a good as ours!
For Those about to Die, We Apologize
Gladiators were real. In those progressive Roman times that gave rise to so much philosophical wisdom and mathematical breakthroughs, gladiators were slaves who fought to the death for the pleasure of their masters. And it wasn’t just a few sadistic, twisted emperors who enjoyed watching humans die a bloody death: 50,000 spectators eagerly cheered along at the fights that had begun as funeral rites.
IN THE KNOW
Sadistic: the quality of enjoying watching others suffer
Did You Know? Fertility drugs go way back. In ancient Rome, a good cup of gladiator blood was sure to increase your chances of conception. So there was a silver lining to the dead gladiator’s abandoned armor: the fight to the death gave birth to new life.
A Spoonful of Poison Helps the Medicine Go Down
When you get sick,
your parents may bring you herbal tea or hot chocolate and, if you need it, medicine that tastes like grape or cherry. Here are some cures of days past that, in our opinion, would only have made you sicker!
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