by Cary McNeal
David Wallechinsky, The New Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information (Canongate U.S., 2005), 397.
* * *
746
FACT : Since the 1950s, several of the most notorious dictators, mass murderers, and state terrorists of Latin America have trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas) run by the CIA at Fort Benning, Georgia. Yes, but they pay out-of-state tuition, and we need the money.
Thom Burnett, Conspiracy Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Conspiracy Theories (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006), 172.
* * *
747
FACT : In 1981, President Ronald Reagan approved nutrition guidelines that qualified ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches, saving the U.S. government millions of dollars. That’s preposterous. Everyone knows the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.
Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton University Press, 2008), 177.
* * *
748
FACT : One week prior to his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln had a dream about someone crying in the White House. He followed the sound to a room where he found a man by a coffin. When Lincoln asked who had died, the man replied, “The President.” But the man by the coffin was Bill Clinton, so Lincoln didn’t believe him.
“Facts About Abraham Lincoln,” Abraham Lincoln Library, www.alincoln-library.com.
* * *
749
FACT : Napoleon used a sandbox to construct his battle plans. He was too short to reach the map tables.
Facts Library, www.factlib.com.
* * *
750
FACT : St. Lawrence of Rome was martyred by order of Roman emperor Valerian in the year 258, reportedly by being grilled over an open flame. Legend also claims that while being cooked, Lawrence told his torturers, “This side is well roasted; turn me over.” If that’s true, then they should change his name to St. Bad-Ass.
“The Martyrdom of St. Laurence,” Free Republic, www.freerepublic.com.
CHAPTER 16
Buggin’
Out
Insect Facts That
Will Give You
the Creepy-
Crawlies
* * *
751
FACT : A cockroach carries more than forty different pathogens that can be transferred to humans, including pneumonia, hepatitis, and typhoid. I have a pathogen that can be transferred to cockroaches. It’s called the bottom of my shoe, and it is fatal 100 percent of the time.
Greta Garbage, That’s Disgusting!: An Adult Guide to What’s Gross, Tasteless, Rude, Crude, and Lewd (Ten Speed Press, 1999).
* * *
752
FACT : Because of its high food intake, a housefly deposits feces constantly—about every five minutes—which makes it a carrier of more than 100 disease-causing agents. And you thought babies crapped a lot.
Yiu H. Hui, Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering (CRC Press, 2006).
* * *
753
FACT : The color of a head louse tends to mimic the color of the person’s hair in which it lives, making it more difficult to detect. After years of lousy service, Bob was named Head Louse of his department.
May R. Berenbaum, Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs (Basic Books, 1996).
* * *
754
FACT : Aphids are born impregnated, do not require sex to procreate, and can give birth within a week of being born themselves, making them quite prolific. In large numbers, aphids can cause serious damage to crops. Probably because they aren’t getting any sex.
Jerry Baker, Jerry Baker’s Bug Off!: 2,193 Super Secrets for Battling Bad Bugs, Outfoxing Crafty Critters, Evicting Voracious Varmints and Much More! (American Master Products, 2005).
Denny Schrock, Home Gardener’s Problem Solver: Symptoms and Solutions for More Than 1,500 Garden Pests and Plant Ailments, 3rd ed. (Ortho Books, 2004).
* * *
755
FACT : There are about 10 quintillion insects on Earth at any given moment; that’s 1.5 billion bugs for every human on the planet. One and a half billion bugs? Sounds like Windows Vista.
Jerry Baker, Jerry Baker’s Bug Off!: 2,193 Super Secrets for Battling Bad Bugs, Outfoxing Crafty Critters, Evicting Voracious Varmints and Much More! (American Master Products, 2005).
* * *
756
FACT : The Vespa mandarinia japonica, or Japanese giant hornet, is the size of your thumb, has a painful sting, and can spray flesh-melting poison into your eyes. Its poison also contains a pheromone that can summon every hornet in the hive to attack. At least they don’t overdo it.
Ross Piper, Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007).
* * *
757
FACT : As the world’s most venomous insect per sting, the Japanese giant hornet kills forty people every year, all of them excruciatingly painful deaths. What, all that stinging and flesh-melting and hive-summoning, and they only manage forty kills a year?
Ross Piper, Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007).
* * *
758
FACT : The bullet ant earned its name because of a sting that feels like getting shot with a gun. Some consider the bullet ant’s sting the most painful of all insects, and pain can persist for up to twenty-four hours after contact. How would they know? Do they shoot a guy and let a bullet ant sting him at the same time and then ask him if the two feel the same?
John L. Capinera, Encyclopedia of Entomology, 2nd ed. (Springer, 2008).
* * *
759
FACT : Africanized honey bees, better known as “killer bees,” hail from South and Central America, and as of 2006, were established in the American South and Southwest. Killer bees are extremely aggressive and prone to potentially deadly attacks when disturbed. I’m the same way when I’m on the can and my kid tries to come into the bathroom.
John L. Capinera, Encyclopedia of Entomology, 2nd ed. (Springer, 2008).
* * *
760
FACT : Killer bees are extremely territorial and have a propensity for mass stinging attacks on both humans and animals. Swarms can kill any number of humans from a few dozen people in Mexico to several hundred in Venezuela. I’d like to see killer bees and Japanese hornets fight it out. That would make a great payper-view event. I’d pay to see it.
John L. Capinera, Encyclopedia of Entomology, 2nd ed.
(Springer, 2008).
* * *
761
FACT : Africanized bees have only been around since the 1950s, when Brazilian scientist Warwick E. Kerr bred a European bee with an African bee in hopes of propagating the positive qualities of the former with a tolerance for tropical climates. The bees swarmed accidentally during quarantine and have been successfully invading the Americas ever since. Thanks for that, Kerr. Ass.
John L. Capinera, Encyclopedia of Entomology, 2nd ed. (Springer, 2008).
* * *
762
FACT : There is no physical way to determine the difference between an Africanized honey bee and the less harmful European bee—even a specialist must examine several bees together to differentiate them. Can’t you just ask them?
John L. Capinera, Encyclopedia of Entomology, 2nd ed. (Springer, 2008).
* * *
763
FACT : Army ants are a half-inch in length and notorious for dismantling any living thing in their path, regardless of its size, thanks to massive, machete-like jaws that are half the size of their own bodies. Army ants are also known as Hilary Swank ants.
Ken Preston-Mafham, The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behaviour (MIT Press, 1993).
* * *
764
FACT : Army ants earned their n
ame because the entire colony—anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000—is a mobile battalion. They don’t make permanent hives like other ants, but bivouac in frequently changing locations. I bet ants would be thrilled to know that they “bivouac.”
Ken Preston-Mafham, The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behaviour (MIT Press, 1993).
* * *
765
FACT : Army ants attack cows and horses by swarming up their legs and attacking the soft tissue of the eyes and nose. If assaulted while penned, these animals can become so hysterical they will beat themselves to death trying to escape. I feel the same way at my in-laws’.
Ken Preston-Mafham, The Encyclopedia of Land Invertebrate Behaviour (MIT Press, 1993).
Alzada Carlisle Kistner, An Affair with Africa: Expeditions and Adventures Across a Continent (Island Press, 1998).
* * *
766
FACT : There are dozens of varieties of botfly, each highly adapted to target a specific animal.
Examples include the horse stomach botfly, deer nose botfly and the human botfly. Each breed has a different and elaborate reproductive cycle that includes a fat, half-inch maggot embedded in the host creature’s living flesh.
Jerome Goddard, Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance, 5th ed. (CRC Press, 2007).
* * *
767
FACT : The human botfly lays its eggs on a bloodsucking host—like a horsefly or a mosquito—and when this carrier lands on a human, the botfly maggot emerges and burrows into the human skin, where it feeds and grows in a sub-dermal cavity for 5–10 weeks.
Jerome Goddard, Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance, 5th ed. (CRC Press, 2007).
* * *
768
FACT : Human botfly larva can grow anywhere in the body, and have been removed from the head, arms, back, abdomen, buttocks, thighs, and armpits of humans. They can even penetrate the incompletely ossified skull of a young child and burrow into the brain. There had better not be a human scrotum botfly.
Jerome Goddard, Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance, 5th ed. (CRC Press, 2007).
* * *
769
FACT : One of the largest terrestrial insects in North America, the wheel bug attacks by piercing the prey’s skin with a large beak and injecting it with a flesh-dissolving poison. Being bitten by a wheel bug is excruciating for humans, and the wound can take weeks to heal. That’s just how wheel bugs roll, yo.
Stephen Welton Taber and Scott B. Fleenor, Insects of the Texas Lost Pines (Texas A&M University Press, 2003).
* * *
770
FACT : Bee assassin bugs have hairs on their legs that allow them to catch and hold onto their prey.
Though named for their penchant for killing bees, assassins are opportunistic and attack many other insects, immobilizing prey with a powerful, fast-acting toxin. Their bite is more painful to humans than bee and wasp stings. You’ve probably heard of would-be assassins, but not bee assassins. Don’t confuse would-be assassins with insects aspiring to become bee assassins; those are called would-be bee assassins.
Maurice Burton and Robert Burton, International Wildlife Encyclopedia, 3rd ed. (Marshall Cavendish, 2002).
* * *
771
FACT : The bite of some assassin bugs found in the Sinai and Negev deserts of Israel is more toxic than the bite of venomous snakes in the region. Hopefully this doesn’t ruin anyone’s vacation plans.
Lance A. Durden, Medical and Veterinary Entomology, 3rd ed. (Academic Press, 2002).
* * *
772
FACT : Kissing bugs usually prey on bed bugs but will suck blood from humans, too. They earn their sweet name in a not-so-sweet way: by biting the lips, eyelids, and ears of sleeping human victims, causing intense pain that can last weeks or even months. Kissing bugs are not the same as Ass-Kissing bugs, which do not bite but will continuously lick and nibble the hindquarters of anyone in authority.
Howard Garrett and C. Malcolm Beck, Texas Bug Book: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 2nd ed. (University of Texas Press, 2005).
* * *
773
FACT : Kissing bugs carry a deadly sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, which infects ii million people in Latin America, many of whom do not know they are infected. Without treatment the condition is lifelong and can be fatal. Similar to Chagas disease is Jag-Ass disease, which affects millions of people all over the world, most of whom are aware of their infection but don’t give a damn.
If untreated, the condition is lifelong and can be fatal.
Howard Garrett and C. Malcolm Beck, Texas Bug Book: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 2nd ed. (University of Texas Press, 2005).
* * *
774
FACT : The most dangerous insect in the world is the mosquito, responsible for the spread of malaria, which infects 350–500 million people each year, killing as many as a million. There are 2,500 species of mosquitoes throughout the world; about 200 of them occur in the United States. All of them in my backyard.
Eric R. Eaton and Kenn Kaufman, Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007).
“Malaria,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov.
American Mosquito Control Association, www.mosquito.org.
* * *
775
FACT : When biting prey, Brazilian wandering spiders inject up to .003 ounces of powerful venom, an amount strong enough to kill 300 mice. What do you call 300 dead mice on the jungle floor? A good start.
Robert S. Anderson, Richard Beatty, and Stuart Church, Insects and Spiders of the World (Marshall Cavendish, 2003).
* * *
776
FACT : Jumping spiders hunt by stalking and leaping on victims while trailing a safety line of silk behind them. Their eight eyes give them almost 180-degree vision, and they can jump up to twenty times their own length. Because regular old walking spiders weren’t creepy enough.
Paul Hillyard, The Private Life of Spiders (New Holland Publishers, 2007).
* * *
777
FACT : The Sydney funnel-web spider is Australia’s most dangerous arachnid, with a bite capable of causing death in as little as fifteen minutes. Just try not to get bitten until the end of your trip, because Sydney is a great city and I recommend seeing as much of it as you can before you die. Especially since you probably won’t be returning.
Jerome Goddard, Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance, 5th ed. (CRC Press, 2007).
* * *
778
FACT : It has no bite, but the common housefly is one of the world’s most deadly insects, thanks to the long list of diseases that it carries and spreads: typhoid, cholera, gangrene, tuberculosis, smallpox, bubonic plague, diptheria, dysentery, and more. Bubonic plague? That shit’s still around?!
Leland Ossian Howard, The House Fly, Disease Carrier: An Account of Its Dangerous Activities and of the Means of Destroying It, 3rd ed. (Frederick A. Stokes, 1911).
* * *
779
FACT : An individual housefly can carry up to 33 million bacteria on the outer surface of its body, 6 million on its feet alone. For this reason, you should always insist that a housefly wipe its feet before entering your home.
Leland Ossian Howard, The House Fly, Disease Carrier: An Account of Its Dangerous Activities and of the Means of Destroying It, 3rd ed. (Frederick A. Stokes, 1911).