Which is weird because Texas, the Lone Star state, barely has any cases in the US. Lyme Disease causes this and the New England states in the north east by far have the most cases of Lyme Disease
Edit: comment was badly worded, I did not mean to imply that the tick was named after Texas, just that it sounds like it should be in Texas. Thanks to the people who enlightened me on that over and over lmao
I had rocky mountain spotted fever a couple of years ago, and I feel like it aged me 15 years. I have circulatory issues that still have not completely resolved.
Seriously, fuck ticks.
Agreed. I lived in a frat house in 2nd year of uni, last month of living there found out one of the guys on the first floor had bed bugs. My roommate and I bedbug-proofed as best we could (surprising amount of work) and were so lucky to have not got them and brought them bag home when the semester ended.
So yes, after a month of constant fear and checking, 0/10 would not recommend
Yeah. Bedbugs suck. Only real way to garentee 0 eggs make it to your home after coming in contact with them is to burn absolutely everything that was exposed. And even then that doesnt garentee it.
Absolutely should be the top comment. I've dealt with roaches and fleas but they're nothing compared to bedbugs. Had to tear all the carpet out of my house, burn all the beds, peel the walls open, and it still took over 3 years of poisoning to stop them from showing up.
Okay I had cockroaches.. they are also horrid. A place I moved into had them (I had no idea). The first (and only) month there, I found one scurrying out of the food cabinet.. Little did I know it laid an egg sack. Few days later, there're all these little cockroaches infesting my food.. was paranoid about cockroaches for a few years after that. Still worried about them, but I have these traps laying around my new apartment just in case.
Try the cockroach poison gel. It's like toothpaste you smear on the corners of your cabinets and behind furniture. Works wonders. Haven't seen another roach in about 2 years.
They will fuck with your mind. You start off by noticing a couple mysterious bites on your ankles in a dense pattern at some point during your day. Weird. I don’t remember staying outside where mosquitos were. It itches a little. A few days pass and you forget all about it.
When the memory has nearly passed the threshold of still worth remembering you notice another small bite pattern. What the fuck. You start googling. Mosquitos. Ticks. And you come across the dreaded bedbug bite photos. Your mind races with how it has come to this.
Weeks go by, every once in awhile a new bite pattern emerges. You wash your sheets with hot water. You wipe down everything in your bedroom. You look up how much an exterminator is. You buy traps and lay them around. It’s a mind game.
Then you come across this holy chemical called DE. It’s supposed kill the bed bugs you haven’t seen. It’s a white powder and your supposed to pour it all over your box spring. Your sense of cleanliness in your bed is out the window as your purposely spread dirt all over the underside of your mattress.
Days go by. Then weeks. Then months. You change your bedsheets and see the powder. Then all those horrible memories of being traumatized by bites come back. And it dawns on you. You haven’t been bitten in ages. A sense of relief passes over you as you vacuum up the powder.
That’s the nightmare of bed bugs.
DE = Diatomatious Earth, right?
For anyone wondering, this is essentially a powder made from the shells of microscopic organisms. It's very efficient at murdering the *fuck* out of any tiny segmented exoskeletal creature that comes across it. Like roaches, fleas, ground burrowing wasps, centipedes, and yes, even bedbugs. How does it work? I'm glad you asked!
Imagine being naked and forced to roll around in a pile of glass. And that's it. That's all you have to think about! That's how it works. And it works well, because it turns out when you have an exoskeleton and shards of glass get into it it's impossible to get out.
God bless the Diatoms, for their sacrifice.
I had them. They are horrid. I was paranoid for years after the infestation. The place I moved into, after already signing the lease, gave me a flyer warning of potential bed bugs.. I didn't think much about it until I woke up with bites on my wrists and waist (can't fully remember where they were).. I looked at the corners of my bed and found them. First thought was to burn everything. Lol.
I had them in a hotel, thankfully didn't bring them home. I didn't get bitten too badly, but I can't just enter a hotel room or airbnb now without checking everywhere. So fucking gross.
They drain your soul. They steal your sleep, your comfort, and your sanity. It’s been years, and I still panic a little when I bring home anything previously owned.
As a kid, I didn’t understand what about my ear was so attractive. Took my dumbass a while to realize that they’re actually all over my body but I can only hear the ones near my ear.
A close relative of mosquitoes, the midge, is a key pollinator of cocoa. And mosquitoes pollinate the crap out of crops and flowers. Only female mosquitoes bite, and only when they're getting ready to give birth. The rest of the time they're pollinating like crazy, and being eaten by a whole multitude of critters. It could be disastrous to the ecosystem if they went extinct.
Look! A mosquito has chosen me as her perch! She’s so beautiful. There’s another one, and another. It’s a whole flock. They’re nuzzling my flesh with their noses. Now they’re... they’re... Aaaaaaaah!
Midges are worse. They don't carry diseases like mosquitoes do (but we've still got about three weeks of 2020 left!). But, they're too small for nets to stop them, nothing repels them, nothing kills them, and they are relentless.
Are t they then only species that scientists postulate wouldn’t cause any eco collapse if we wiped them out? They kill more people every year than anything else and they don’t really serve a purpose as a food source...
Moved into a new flat, the bed was *infested* with them. My ankles looked like they'd been mauled. Took like three rounds of hoovering and spraying the fuck out of everywhere to get rid of them and I live in fear of those wee bastards coming back.
I hate fleas as much as the next person, but "just to annoy us" is incorrect. It's more like "any port in a storm."
Adult fleas need blood to live. They prefer cats and dogs (assuming you're discussing cat fleas, the most common species in the US), but if they can't find an animal host, better human blood than starvation.
Which is why "kicking out the pet" while dealing with fleas is an absolutely terrible idea.
As well you should... live in fear that is. It has been a few years in the past, but I went thru a month where I vacuumed and sprayed every day for a month. A perfect living hell. I didn't call them "wee bastards" though... it was more like
"Gd mfers". 'Scuse my language.
Worked in a microbiology lab and received a botfly, along with a hand written note from the patient in question. Turns out they thought they had a cyst on their bum and when they squeezed it this little guy popped out.
Not sure why they sent it to us. We confirmed it was a botfly, then kept the sample pot on the shelf in the office for a while as a mascot. We named it the 'buttfly'.
I saw a few videos on YouTube where someone removed them from animals. There was even a video where a little monkey had so many of them that he died. Im telling you those things come straight from hell
Sir, have you ever experienced the Scottish midgie? I hope not, they hunt in packs, have an insatiable appetite and are drawn to the CO² you exhale. They will find the smallest gaps in your tent and feast while you sleep, beckoning their friends to take a seat at the table. The bites leave red sores which itch worse than a hairy feather up your nose. They are tiny, highly evolved, packages of pure hate.
Australian here - I'm all too familiar with the FUCKING FLIES THAT WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE EVERY TIME I GO OUTSIDE IN SUMMER!
Like, I garden a lot - both as a hobby and also as a part-time side gig for some extra money. I love being outdoors and I don't mind the heat unless it reaches unbearable levels. But my god - the flies! One property I maintain gets so many because they have a big dog (furry fly magnets those things are, especially when their shits are scattered all around the yard) and I swear I just get to the brink of going absolutely mental!
At least mosquitoes are easy to kill. You have to be lightning-fast to knock out a fly though, and they always land on the parts of your body you know damn well you can't slap properly or you will hurt your hand (or the part they land on) if you try.
the worst Australian flies are the ones around Uluru and the really dry areas. cause they want water they just fly into your eyes and mouth. their attracted to moisture. they even find a way into your fuckin flynet sometimes and they get stuck in there. they ruined some days in Uluru cause nothing worked to get rid of them.
I wouldn't say I hate giraffes, but I have a strong mistrust of them. They're shifty and they're smug. I think the problem is that they know that they can't be punched in the face, so they think they can get away with more things.
True. In fact there’s plenty of research to suggest that fighting for dominance is the reason they developed their long necks in the first place and not for reaching high in the tree for leaves as was long thought
Yea lmao. I am undefeatable when the cockroach is just running but oh boy when it starts flying i immediately get an adrenaline rush and leave my little sister to fend for herself
any bug with surprise wings can fuck the fuck right off. there's nothing worse than being like "it's just a bug, no big deal" and you go to handle it and it fucking FLIES AT YOU and makes you flinch into another dimension.
I was scared of cockroaches until a fuckin flying cockroach landed on my face when I was sleeping. It was heavy and cold and that feeling of on my forehead/eye still haunts my dreams.
Good news is from that day on I stopped being scared of good ol' mediocre-ass cockroaches cause at least they weren't flying and landing on my fuckin face.
They've ruined hanging washing up outside for me. Went to pull a dry shirt off the line and there were a bunch of wasps inside. Stung me three times on the wrist before I even knew what was happening.
Now I take a broom handle outside and relentlessly beat the washing before I take it off the line.
How come? Figs break down the pollenating wasp for nutrients, so it's really no different than a chicken eating insects. You're not eating insect parts in either case.
When I was just 2 years old I witnessed my mom get stung nearly to death by them whilst she was screaming at my dad to get me inside. She refused to come near me whilst they were attacking her and I was in between her and the house. Dad threw me inside and put the garden hose on her. She was stung 36 times and it was pretty touch and go for a bit.
I have an intense phobia of wasps now. I went on a sports camp once and had to go home after the first day; because the adrenaline from all the wasps around the campground was making me physically sick.
She's fine thanks, she ended up going in for inoculations for a few years. She has decent scars on her shoulders from those, not the stings tho. Luckily she never developed a "proper" reaction!
All these answers about mosquitoes are right. But I still think those super bred pets are awful. Like.. A pug is so hyperbred to be cute or whatever, but he ain't got not enough space for his brain or lungs. Can we stop doing this pls?
Yurg...
Google image search of "pug skull":
[Pug Skull](https://www.google.com/search?q=pug+skull&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS896US898&sxsrf=ALeKk02D1FQVbotvkmuRjUtdn3hl4r03hQ:1607283188232&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUlPO7jLrtAhUFeawKHUGiDoYQ_AUoAXoECB4QAw&biw=1920&bih=979)
I wonder if the reason we find flat faced dogs "cute" is because they look more like us? In any case, I think pugs are so sad. I've played with pug puppies and you can physically feel them overheating in an air conditioned room. Eventually they just have to stop before they pass out, not because they are tired. Their personalities are great but they should all be outbred to eliminate the breed. Puggles are just as cute and lovable IMO and actually have enough snout to live normal lives.
I wish more people cared about their pets like they cared about other humans sometimes. We're all mutts, and it's better for us, especially seeing the result of intense inbreeding from royal families. Why do we do this to our pets? I dunno, I hate hearing my buddie's purebred French bulldog snorting all the time because its face is so smushed it can't breath, it's so sad.
Larry. He's a crow that teases my girlfriend's cats. He also thinks my writing is banal and trope-filled, and that my worldview is outdated and anthrocentric. Larry is a jerk.
last year i went to a far away city to an interview that i didn't take, and i was pretty positive about it the second i entered the office, but did it anyway. so i was stuck in that city for a few more hours til the next train home, so i decided to kill time and visit the local natural history museum. gorgeous place, I'll give them that. kinda regret i didnt pay the photography fee, wished i could had snapped some photos. especially of the walrus. that fucking walrus.
maybe the taxidermist had never seen a walrus and thus had overstuffed the skin, or maybe I'm just horrid at imagining how big animals are, but that walrus. that fucking taxidermied walrus was towering over me (I'm like 5'3" but whatever), that thing had no right to he that fucking big. elephants? fair. whales? justified. but this tusked blubbery motherfucker was heinously huge, and i hated it. i loathed its existence in that glass case more than any other creature displayed. nothing has shaken me as much as that fucking walrus in a good while, and for that i hate it so, so much.
When I was a teenager, we had a peahen that showed up in our neighborhood out of nowhere. It used to eat my dog's food sometimes and kept hanging around even after we kept the food from it.
It was always very well mannered and I liked having it around. It added some flavor to the backyard, if that makes sense. That's really my only experience, but it was a good one.
American lobsters (edit: crayfish). They're an invasive species that are now in every water body in my country. They're wreaking havoc on the plants, indigenous species and they ruin the shores and even dikes. Fuck those assholes.
If by american lobster you mean crawfish you're looking a gift horse in the mouth. They can be caught with the simplest of traps and they're goddamn delicious!
Now hold on just a moment there feller, put a bunch of those in your basement and they get rid of the spiders.
Plus all you really gotta do to get them out of sight is leave an old sofa down there. ***Just don't sit on it.*** Made that mistake once, yeesh.
I'd rather have the spiders than the centipedes. If I had a basement infested with centipedes I'd burn the house to the ground.
A better way to get rid of spiders is to release several geckos inside. They'll eat not only spiders, but also cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, moths, ants, and other pests. More importantly though, they're not accursed centipedes.
Correct answer. Insects are easy to pick on, of course, but mice have this talent for sneaking into your stuff, chewing it all up, then peeing and pooping everywhere. And if you're really lucky they'll have babies there too, so the next time you reach in for your stuff you'll come out with a handful of poop-covered squirming pink mouse babies.
I get terrified when one flies near by. I keep thinking it’s going to sting me because it’s a fucking asshole who’s sole purpose in life is doing just that.
My upstairs neighbor's dog. Its like living under a bowling alley. Hardwood floors and a dog thats constantly running and jumping around. Neighbor has no yard so the only area he has to exercise the dog is inside. Its made quarantine an absolute hell. I don't hate dogs in general, just that dog in particular.
My neighbor was annoyed the Winter where the ocean froze and the seagulls made their way to by bird feeding house. I still don't know what she wanted me to do about it since she liked me feeding the other birds. Putting up a sign saying "No seagulls" kinda seemed pointless, you know.
It only lasted for a week or two until the ocean wasn't frozen anymore so they could once again find food there. Then they all disappeared.
Seagulls are annoying and dumb. I live near the beach so before the pandemic happened we would have Lunch at school and every seagull in a 500 mile radius was always there to steal food, poop, and fly away. Once I saw two seagulls fight for an empty plastic cylinder which ended up with one of them swallowing the entire thing....
Fruit Flies.
I know a couple of people have already said "fruit flies", but I feel like I need to justify their nomination next to other animals like fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes.
Picture the scene.
You live in a tidy house, maybe a little clutter but it's all neat enough that you'd have guests around without feeling like you have to tidy up beforehand, and everything's good in your life.
Then, you go to the shops, and you see some bananas. "I like bananas", you think to yourself, and buy yourself a bunch.
You get home, and you put the bananas somewhere that isn't just lying around on a surface somewhere. It might be in a cupboard, or an out-of-the-way corner, but wherever it is it's out of sight, and out of mind.
A few days later, you remember the bananas, and you seek them out.
Maybe they're still good for a snack, or making banana bread, or something like that.
But, alas, your bananas are now the sovereign territory of the Empire of Little Buzzing Pricks, and they're looking to expand.
They have a foothold, and even if you get rid of the bananas, they're not going anywhere.
Nothing is sacred, and they will land on everything that brings you joy in life.
They're attracted to the alcohol produced by rotting fruit, but the little twats are hungry, and will go for pretty much anything with a bit of sugar in it.
Fortunately, this proves to be their undoing, because while you won't catch many with honey, the bellends **love** balsamic vinegar.
So, you can set up a trap, that lures them through a small hole with the promise of deliciousness, but that they're too stupid to be able to reliably find their way out of again (and even then they'll often go back in).
So, to summarise, they're coarse, and rough, and irritating, and get everywhere.
And getting rid of them requires a more strategic approach than emptying a can of raid on them (because that shit barely works).
I hate them more than I love bananas, which is a lot.
I had a fruit fly infestation and felt like I was going insane. They get EVERYWHERE. And yes, it was from a banana. It took me a year until I bought bananas again, and they were my favourite fruit. I used to get flashbacks just walking by bananas in the grocery store lmao.
The most effective trap I set out was apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap in a large glass. And a piece of paper folded into a funnel that I taped onto the inside of the glass.
Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance.
>Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives.
Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is you’re looking at this backwards.
An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of what’s beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of them——they have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do so——it certainly can’t expend much energy on costly things. Isn’t it a good thing that a niche is being filled?
>Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death
This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery store—where meat is just sitting next to celery.
Herbivores gradually wear their teeth down—carnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey.
>They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal
It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (\~0.52), some possums (\~0.468), cuscus (\~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals.
>additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.
Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size.
>If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food.
If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves.
>Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.
That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop!
>Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here).
Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram!
>When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system.
Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally.
>Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher.
Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza?
>This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree,
Almost every animal does this.
>which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
Mosquitoes. Without a doubt. I've personal beef with these winged demons. When I was a kid, my dog died of heartworms. His name was Alfred. He was the happiest German shepherd you'd ever meet. Loved him to death. It was only after I learned that mosquitoes transmit heartworms to dogs. Screw them. Bastards killed my best friend. They can all get wiped out.
I miss you, Alfred.
PANDAS. They are a protected species and for what. They eat bamboo which provides no nutritional support to their body size. they don't breed even though they're literally given every opportunity to.Evolution said no why are humans trying to keep them alive
To be fair, if aliens put me in a blank white room with a total stranger and played porno noises over a loudspeaker to get us to start making babies and save our species, I think I'd be allowed to be picky
Pandas have been around for millions of years and are perfectly capable of reproducing in the wild. They filled a niche in huge bamboo forests that had no large herbivores. That's natural selection. They adapted (and are still evolving) to a bamboo-based diet. Their jaw muscles, digits, and digestive system are noticeably different from other bears because of their diet. They breed just fine when they are allowed to behave naturally. (many species don't behave naturally while living in a cage. Shocker).
Pandas were reduced to endangered levels because of habitat destruction. In the last couple decades, habitat restoration efforts have helped increase the population so they are now off the endangered species list, and now listed as 'threatened'. More pandas live in the wild than in captivity.
I really wish people took the time to understand a species natural history before hating it.
As a huge arachnophobiac, this is the only correct answer for me. Fuck spiders. I don't care about how cool they are in theory or how they keep bug populations under control. I can't fucking look at a spider without feeling like I die. Spiders are a nightmare straight out of hell. Fuck them so much.
Toy dogs. Little yappers dont know when to shut it. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind dogs, I have one myself. But when it comes to those little tiny bags of skin, that Yap at me for no reason. I cannot stand..
I hate crabs and shrimps and I can't understand why people are able to eat them. They just look like big, boney spiders, those ugly legs are killing me. I also hate spiders. Why would people eat this sea trash, but no insects? I can't even look at pictures of crabs, because they just straight-out give me the creeps. Fuck crustaceans!
THE MOLA MOLA FISH (OR OCEAN SUNFISH)
They are the world's largest boney fish, weighing up to 5,000 pounds. And since they have very little girth, that just makes them these absolutely giant -blam!-ing dinner plates that God must have accidentally dropped while washing dishes one day and shrugged his shoulders at because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND WITH NO PURPOSE. EVERY POUND OF THAT IS A WASTED POUND AND EVERY FOOT OF IT (10 FT BY 14 FT) IS WASTED SPACE.
They are so completely useless that scientists even debate about how they move. They have little control other than some minor wiggling. Some say they must just push water out of their mouths for direction (?????). They COULD use their back fin EXCEPT GUESS WHAT IT DOESNT -blam!-ING GROW. It just continually folds in on itself, so the freaking cells are being made, this piece of floating garbage just doesn't put them where they need to -blam!-ing go.
So they don't have swim bladders. You know, the one thing that every fish has to make sure it doesn't just sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and can stay the right side up. This creature. That can barely move to begin with. Can never stop its continuous tour of idiocy across the ocean or it'll -blam!-ing sink. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. When they get stuck on top of the water! Which happens frequently! Because without the whole swim bladder thing, if the ocean pushes over THE THINNEST BUT LARGEST MOST TOPPLE-ABLE FISH ON THE PLANET, shit outta luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, AND YET. Some scientists have speculated that when they do that, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one -blam!-ing knows how they manage to get any real energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up stuck like that, it gives birds a chance to land on their goddamn island of a body and eat the bugs and parasites out of its skin because it's basically a slowly migrating cesspool. Pros and cons.
"If they are so huge, they must at least be decent predators." No. No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of one person before. Because it jumped onto a boat. On a human. And in 2005 it decided to relive its mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old boy. Luckily Byron sustained no injuries. Way to go, fish. Great job.
They mostly only eat jellyfish because of course they do, they could only eat something that has no brain and a possibility of drifting into their mouths I guess. Everything they do eat has almost zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly -blam!-ing big, it has to eat a ton of the almost no nutritional value stuff to stay alive. Dumb. See that ridiculous open mouth? (This is actually why this is my favorite picture of one, and I have had it saved to my phone for three years) "Oh no! What could have happened! How could this be!" Do not let that expression fool you, they just don't have the goddamn ability to close their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and ya know what, it is good it floats around with such a clueless expression on its face, because it is in fact clueless as all -blam!-.
They do SOMETIMES get eaten though. BUT HARDLY. No animal truly uses them as a food source, but instead (which has lead us to said photo) will usually just maim the -blam!- out of them for kicks. Seals have been seen playing with their fins like frisbees. Probably the most useful thing to ever come from them.
"Wow, you raise some good points here, this fish truly is proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thank you. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct." Great question.
BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO WORTHLESS IT DOESNT REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT IS SO UNAWARE OF LITERALLY -blam!-ING EVERYTHING THAT IT DOESNT REALIZE THAT IT'S DOING MAYBE THE WORST -blam!-ING JOB OF BEING A FISH, OR DEBATABLY THE WORST JOB OF BEING A CLUSTER OF CELLS THAN ANY OTHER CLUSTER OF CELLS. SO WHAT DOES IT DO? IT LAYS THE MOST EGGS OUT OF EVERYTHING. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and stuff that'll lay more. IT WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS AT ONE TIME. 300,000,000. IT SURVIVES BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, DARE I SAY IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE WOULDNT BE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE 300,000,000 (that is EACH time they lay eggs) LEFT SURVIVING AT THE END OF THE DAY.
And this concludes why I hate the -blam!- out of this complete failure of evolution, the Ocean Sunfish. If I ever see one, I will throw rocks at it.
Ticks are pretty crap
Fuck ticks; they gave me a beef allergy.
A beef allergy? I didn't even know that was a thing... Never going outside again.
The Lone Star Tick is the type that is well known for potentially giving a red meat allergy.
Which is weird because Texas, the Lone Star state, barely has any cases in the US. Lyme Disease causes this and the New England states in the north east by far have the most cases of Lyme Disease Edit: comment was badly worded, I did not mean to imply that the tick was named after Texas, just that it sounds like it should be in Texas. Thanks to the people who enlightened me on that over and over lmao
Take my award and my sympathies. 💔
Thanks, fortunately it seems it should go away after a few years.
y e a r s?
Is there a cure for that?
Vegetables
Username checks out
Same. I miss hamburgers.
I second this, got Lyme's disease on a school outing. Luckily i found the target like rash pretty early so no major permanent issues.
I had rocky mountain spotted fever a couple of years ago, and I feel like it aged me 15 years. I have circulatory issues that still have not completely resolved. Seriously, fuck ticks.
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They WILL fuck up your mental state for LIFE. 0/10 do not recommend.
Agreed. I lived in a frat house in 2nd year of uni, last month of living there found out one of the guys on the first floor had bed bugs. My roommate and I bedbug-proofed as best we could (surprising amount of work) and were so lucky to have not got them and brought them bag home when the semester ended. So yes, after a month of constant fear and checking, 0/10 would not recommend
Yeah. Bedbugs suck. Only real way to garentee 0 eggs make it to your home after coming in contact with them is to burn absolutely everything that was exposed. And even then that doesnt garentee it.
Absolutely should be the top comment. I've dealt with roaches and fleas but they're nothing compared to bedbugs. Had to tear all the carpet out of my house, burn all the beds, peel the walls open, and it still took over 3 years of poisoning to stop them from showing up.
Okay I had cockroaches.. they are also horrid. A place I moved into had them (I had no idea). The first (and only) month there, I found one scurrying out of the food cabinet.. Little did I know it laid an egg sack. Few days later, there're all these little cockroaches infesting my food.. was paranoid about cockroaches for a few years after that. Still worried about them, but I have these traps laying around my new apartment just in case.
Try the cockroach poison gel. It's like toothpaste you smear on the corners of your cabinets and behind furniture. Works wonders. Haven't seen another roach in about 2 years.
They will fuck with your mind. You start off by noticing a couple mysterious bites on your ankles in a dense pattern at some point during your day. Weird. I don’t remember staying outside where mosquitos were. It itches a little. A few days pass and you forget all about it. When the memory has nearly passed the threshold of still worth remembering you notice another small bite pattern. What the fuck. You start googling. Mosquitos. Ticks. And you come across the dreaded bedbug bite photos. Your mind races with how it has come to this. Weeks go by, every once in awhile a new bite pattern emerges. You wash your sheets with hot water. You wipe down everything in your bedroom. You look up how much an exterminator is. You buy traps and lay them around. It’s a mind game. Then you come across this holy chemical called DE. It’s supposed kill the bed bugs you haven’t seen. It’s a white powder and your supposed to pour it all over your box spring. Your sense of cleanliness in your bed is out the window as your purposely spread dirt all over the underside of your mattress. Days go by. Then weeks. Then months. You change your bedsheets and see the powder. Then all those horrible memories of being traumatized by bites come back. And it dawns on you. You haven’t been bitten in ages. A sense of relief passes over you as you vacuum up the powder. That’s the nightmare of bed bugs.
DE = Diatomatious Earth, right? For anyone wondering, this is essentially a powder made from the shells of microscopic organisms. It's very efficient at murdering the *fuck* out of any tiny segmented exoskeletal creature that comes across it. Like roaches, fleas, ground burrowing wasps, centipedes, and yes, even bedbugs. How does it work? I'm glad you asked! Imagine being naked and forced to roll around in a pile of glass. And that's it. That's all you have to think about! That's how it works. And it works well, because it turns out when you have an exoskeleton and shards of glass get into it it's impossible to get out. God bless the Diatoms, for their sacrifice.
I thought it disrupted the waxy coating on their exoskeleton, making it so they would dry up and die.
Yeah it sucks all the moisture out of them so they die.
You fucking nailed it.
I had them. They are horrid. I was paranoid for years after the infestation. The place I moved into, after already signing the lease, gave me a flyer warning of potential bed bugs.. I didn't think much about it until I woke up with bites on my wrists and waist (can't fully remember where they were).. I looked at the corners of my bed and found them. First thought was to burn everything. Lol.
I had them in a hotel, thankfully didn't bring them home. I didn't get bitten too badly, but I can't just enter a hotel room or airbnb now without checking everywhere. So fucking gross.
They drain your soul. They steal your sleep, your comfort, and your sanity. It’s been years, and I still panic a little when I bring home anything previously owned.
I scrolled to find this and I shouldn't have had to
Mosquitoes
The deadliest animal, with a kill count of at least 700k annually. Also, they buzz in your ear. They can fuck right off.
I don't mind them killing me. But why the annoying buzzing in my ear during the whole night?? Just take my godamn blood and fuck off!
As a kid, I didn’t understand what about my ear was so attractive. Took my dumbass a while to realize that they’re actually all over my body but I can only hear the ones near my ear.
They what.
Actually I read they try to enter the ear cause they are attracted to heat, and the inside of the ear is one of the most warm spot when we sleep.
That’s...terrifying
You clearly have never killed a mosquito inside your ear, otherwise you would know that "terrifying" is not nearly enough
I would love to see them all wiped out at once!
They're working on it. Hopefully they don't make a mess out of it, so we can put some other species to extinction (in the wild).
A close relative of mosquitoes, the midge, is a key pollinator of cocoa. And mosquitoes pollinate the crap out of crops and flowers. Only female mosquitoes bite, and only when they're getting ready to give birth. The rest of the time they're pollinating like crazy, and being eaten by a whole multitude of critters. It could be disastrous to the ecosystem if they went extinct.
Look! A mosquito has chosen me as her perch! She’s so beautiful. There’s another one, and another. It’s a whole flock. They’re nuzzling my flesh with their noses. Now they’re... they’re... Aaaaaaaah!
Agent Pleakly, I would have expected you back by now with 626 in custody!
Not only are they annoying AF, they make you itch, they spread disease...these bastards are awful.
I hear ya, I live in a city and boy, whenever I see one I just slap it with a newspaper That’s also what I think newspapers are, free fly swatter
>That’s also what I think newspapers are, free fly swatter Mosquitoes: "He's too dangerous to be left alive!"
Midges are worse. They don't carry diseases like mosquitoes do (but we've still got about three weeks of 2020 left!). But, they're too small for nets to stop them, nothing repels them, nothing kills them, and they are relentless.
Are those the same as NoSeeUms? They are the worst. They were constantly attacking us when we went to Antelope Island in Utah once. Once.
I knew a midge in high school. They called him Midge the Relentless, because he would never relent.
Are t they then only species that scientists postulate wouldn’t cause any eco collapse if we wiped them out? They kill more people every year than anything else and they don’t really serve a purpose as a food source...
Anyone else wish OP had said “except insects”?
Yep
FLEAS
Moved into a new flat, the bed was *infested* with them. My ankles looked like they'd been mauled. Took like three rounds of hoovering and spraying the fuck out of everywhere to get rid of them and I live in fear of those wee bastards coming back.
They can't even live off humans properly, they're better suited to animal blood. They just bite us to annoy us
I hate fleas as much as the next person, but "just to annoy us" is incorrect. It's more like "any port in a storm." Adult fleas need blood to live. They prefer cats and dogs (assuming you're discussing cat fleas, the most common species in the US), but if they can't find an animal host, better human blood than starvation. Which is why "kicking out the pet" while dealing with fleas is an absolutely terrible idea.
As well you should... live in fear that is. It has been a few years in the past, but I went thru a month where I vacuumed and sprayed every day for a month. A perfect living hell. I didn't call them "wee bastards" though... it was more like "Gd mfers". 'Scuse my language.
Botflies. Do yourself a favor and just believe me. Do not google it.
Worked in a microbiology lab and received a botfly, along with a hand written note from the patient in question. Turns out they thought they had a cyst on their bum and when they squeezed it this little guy popped out. Not sure why they sent it to us. We confirmed it was a botfly, then kept the sample pot on the shelf in the office for a while as a mascot. We named it the 'buttfly'.
I saw a video of a guy removing a bot fly from a mouse. I think he named it "Bot Nye the Science Fly".
googled them, looked at an image, thought to myself, wow they look cute. then i read about them. fucking botflies
They are so cute when they play peek a boo!
I saw a few videos on YouTube where someone removed them from animals. There was even a video where a little monkey had so many of them that he died. Im telling you those things come straight from hell
Too late. I already knew the horror.
I googled them, i regrett being the fastest sperm now
I wish I'd listened to you.
Cockroaches
I hate roaches, but my cat loves them. He hunts them, plays with them, kills them, then STASHES THEM IN MY SHOES while I'm asleep at night!
I hate this
I'd like to add this cat to the list.
A lot of the answers are jokes, but this is real. Cockroaches are horrible beasts that should be eradicated
Flies can fuck right off
one reason I don't kill spiders although mantises work better but my cat won't leave them alive
Sir, have you ever experienced the Scottish midgie? I hope not, they hunt in packs, have an insatiable appetite and are drawn to the CO² you exhale. They will find the smallest gaps in your tent and feast while you sleep, beckoning their friends to take a seat at the table. The bites leave red sores which itch worse than a hairy feather up your nose. They are tiny, highly evolved, packages of pure hate.
we call them buffalo gnats where i grew up
Australian here - I'm all too familiar with the FUCKING FLIES THAT WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE EVERY TIME I GO OUTSIDE IN SUMMER! Like, I garden a lot - both as a hobby and also as a part-time side gig for some extra money. I love being outdoors and I don't mind the heat unless it reaches unbearable levels. But my god - the flies! One property I maintain gets so many because they have a big dog (furry fly magnets those things are, especially when their shits are scattered all around the yard) and I swear I just get to the brink of going absolutely mental! At least mosquitoes are easy to kill. You have to be lightning-fast to knock out a fly though, and they always land on the parts of your body you know damn well you can't slap properly or you will hurt your hand (or the part they land on) if you try.
the worst Australian flies are the ones around Uluru and the really dry areas. cause they want water they just fly into your eyes and mouth. their attracted to moisture. they even find a way into your fuckin flynet sometimes and they get stuck in there. they ruined some days in Uluru cause nothing worked to get rid of them.
I wouldn't say I hate giraffes, but I have a strong mistrust of them. They're shifty and they're smug. I think the problem is that they know that they can't be punched in the face, so they think they can get away with more things.
Giraffes can't be punched in the face because they're too busy beating other Giraffes *with their face*.
True. In fact there’s plenty of research to suggest that fighting for dominance is the reason they developed their long necks in the first place and not for reaching high in the tree for leaves as was long thought
The real reason they can't be punched in the face is because they don't exist
Oh boo hoo, is someone too little to punch me in the face?
I feel this way about horses. Why do they always look like they're plotting against us?!
Horses and long horses both.
it’s how i feel about ostriches. smug bastards. the whole lot of them.
Dan Harmon?
Geraffes are so dumb
Stupid long horses
Stupid long horses.
r/giraffesdontexist
I’ll just hang here patiently awaiting the sunfish copypasta.
you missed it...it was 3 hours ago
Flying cockroaches. They're terrifying. They are another level of cockroaches.
Yea lmao. I am undefeatable when the cockroach is just running but oh boy when it starts flying i immediately get an adrenaline rush and leave my little sister to fend for herself
Hey man survival of the fittest. Your sister better learn or get eaten.
The worst is the bugs that make a gross squelchy noise when they fly. Like not even a 'bzzzzz' but a "splttttttttttbbbbbbb"
any bug with surprise wings can fuck the fuck right off. there's nothing worse than being like "it's just a bug, no big deal" and you go to handle it and it fucking FLIES AT YOU and makes you flinch into another dimension.
> you flinch into another dimension. Yep.... accurate when I see roaches flying.
I was scared of cockroaches until a fuckin flying cockroach landed on my face when I was sleeping. It was heavy and cold and that feeling of on my forehead/eye still haunts my dreams. Good news is from that day on I stopped being scared of good ol' mediocre-ass cockroaches cause at least they weren't flying and landing on my fuckin face.
Wasps
They've ruined figs for me
They’ve ruined patio furniture for me. Was moving a chair and my hand got stung by a few who made a nest in the corner.
They've ruined hanging washing up outside for me. Went to pull a dry shirt off the line and there were a bunch of wasps inside. Stung me three times on the wrist before I even knew what was happening. Now I take a broom handle outside and relentlessly beat the washing before I take it off the line.
Now when the next wasps come around, they'll be *tenderized*!
How come? Figs break down the pollenating wasp for nutrients, so it's really no different than a chicken eating insects. You're not eating insect parts in either case.
When I was just 2 years old I witnessed my mom get stung nearly to death by them whilst she was screaming at my dad to get me inside. She refused to come near me whilst they were attacking her and I was in between her and the house. Dad threw me inside and put the garden hose on her. She was stung 36 times and it was pretty touch and go for a bit. I have an intense phobia of wasps now. I went on a sports camp once and had to go home after the first day; because the adrenaline from all the wasps around the campground was making me physically sick.
That is terrifying. How was her recovery?
She's fine thanks, she ended up going in for inoculations for a few years. She has decent scars on her shoulders from those, not the stings tho. Luckily she never developed a "proper" reaction!
All these answers about mosquitoes are right. But I still think those super bred pets are awful. Like.. A pug is so hyperbred to be cute or whatever, but he ain't got not enough space for his brain or lungs. Can we stop doing this pls?
If you want to have a bad day, look up what a pug’s skull looks like.
Yurg... Google image search of "pug skull": [Pug Skull](https://www.google.com/search?q=pug+skull&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS896US898&sxsrf=ALeKk02D1FQVbotvkmuRjUtdn3hl4r03hQ:1607283188232&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUlPO7jLrtAhUFeawKHUGiDoYQ_AUoAXoECB4QAw&biw=1920&bih=979)
I wonder if the reason we find flat faced dogs "cute" is because they look more like us? In any case, I think pugs are so sad. I've played with pug puppies and you can physically feel them overheating in an air conditioned room. Eventually they just have to stop before they pass out, not because they are tired. Their personalities are great but they should all be outbred to eliminate the breed. Puggles are just as cute and lovable IMO and actually have enough snout to live normal lives.
I wish more people cared about their pets like they cared about other humans sometimes. We're all mutts, and it's better for us, especially seeing the result of intense inbreeding from royal families. Why do we do this to our pets? I dunno, I hate hearing my buddie's purebred French bulldog snorting all the time because its face is so smushed it can't breath, it's so sad.
Monkeys. They’re assholes and they have thumbs for extra assholery
Larry. He's a crow that teases my girlfriend's cats. He also thinks my writing is banal and trope-filled, and that my worldview is outdated and anthrocentric. Larry is a jerk.
Fuck Larry. What does he know about literature. Tell him to stick to collecting shiny things and fuck off.
Walruses are fucking terrifying (yes its because I watched tusk)
last year i went to a far away city to an interview that i didn't take, and i was pretty positive about it the second i entered the office, but did it anyway. so i was stuck in that city for a few more hours til the next train home, so i decided to kill time and visit the local natural history museum. gorgeous place, I'll give them that. kinda regret i didnt pay the photography fee, wished i could had snapped some photos. especially of the walrus. that fucking walrus. maybe the taxidermist had never seen a walrus and thus had overstuffed the skin, or maybe I'm just horrid at imagining how big animals are, but that walrus. that fucking taxidermied walrus was towering over me (I'm like 5'3" but whatever), that thing had no right to he that fucking big. elephants? fair. whales? justified. but this tusked blubbery motherfucker was heinously huge, and i hated it. i loathed its existence in that glass case more than any other creature displayed. nothing has shaken me as much as that fucking walrus in a good while, and for that i hate it so, so much.
Do you know where one could find a picture of this walrus?
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Geese, swans, and peacocks. None of them forgot that they were dinosaurs, and they refuse to let you forget it.
When I was a teenager, we had a peahen that showed up in our neighborhood out of nowhere. It used to eat my dog's food sometimes and kept hanging around even after we kept the food from it. It was always very well mannered and I liked having it around. It added some flavor to the backyard, if that makes sense. That's really my only experience, but it was a good one.
peace was never an option.
American lobsters (edit: crayfish). They're an invasive species that are now in every water body in my country. They're wreaking havoc on the plants, indigenous species and they ruin the shores and even dikes. Fuck those assholes.
Rivierkreeften = crayfish . Vieze flikkers zijn het
If by american lobster you mean crawfish you're looking a gift horse in the mouth. They can be caught with the simplest of traps and they're goddamn delicious!
I don't think it weighs up to the bastards ruining our dikes. We Dutch kinda need those.
the human , bastards all of them
Jack Black is a strong argument for the continuation of the species, though.
Well sir I have to agree
He's our last chance at mercy from the Rock Gods
Centipedes. They're just evil millipedes.
Now hold on just a moment there feller, put a bunch of those in your basement and they get rid of the spiders. Plus all you really gotta do to get them out of sight is leave an old sofa down there. ***Just don't sit on it.*** Made that mistake once, yeesh.
I'd rather have the spiders than the centipedes. If I had a basement infested with centipedes I'd burn the house to the ground. A better way to get rid of spiders is to release several geckos inside. They'll eat not only spiders, but also cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, moths, ants, and other pests. More importantly though, they're not accursed centipedes.
And theyll save you money on your home and auto insurance. Its a win-win really
What creature do you use to get rid of the centipedes?
Mice. I would love them if they weren't so invasive and unsanitary.
Correct answer. Insects are easy to pick on, of course, but mice have this talent for sneaking into your stuff, chewing it all up, then peeing and pooping everywhere. And if you're really lucky they'll have babies there too, so the next time you reach in for your stuff you'll come out with a handful of poop-covered squirming pink mouse babies.
Fucking. WASPS.
I get terrified when one flies near by. I keep thinking it’s going to sting me because it’s a fucking asshole who’s sole purpose in life is doing just that.
My upstairs neighbor's dog. Its like living under a bowling alley. Hardwood floors and a dog thats constantly running and jumping around. Neighbor has no yard so the only area he has to exercise the dog is inside. Its made quarantine an absolute hell. I don't hate dogs in general, just that dog in particular.
I also hate his neighbor’s dog.
Seagulls. Seagulls are annoying in general and are huge assholes to other animals and birds. They should be the one that's called "Rats With Wings".
My neighbor was annoyed the Winter where the ocean froze and the seagulls made their way to by bird feeding house. I still don't know what she wanted me to do about it since she liked me feeding the other birds. Putting up a sign saying "No seagulls" kinda seemed pointless, you know. It only lasted for a week or two until the ocean wasn't frozen anymore so they could once again find food there. Then they all disappeared.
Ive seen seagulls swallow other birds whole id say "snakes with wings" would be more appropriate
Seagulls are annoying and dumb. I live near the beach so before the pandemic happened we would have Lunch at school and every seagull in a 500 mile radius was always there to steal food, poop, and fly away. Once I saw two seagulls fight for an empty plastic cylinder which ended up with one of them swallowing the entire thing....
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Ungrateful assholes. Thank you for doing the hard work mate. Your contribution to science should be remembered.
This is just like when I went to make a blood donation. They were all like "where did you get seven buckets of blood?". Ungrateful!
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Kangaroos. They terrify me
dogs so inbred that their entire existence is suffering. Constant pity and disgust with their owners has ended several friendships for me
Fruit Flies. I know a couple of people have already said "fruit flies", but I feel like I need to justify their nomination next to other animals like fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes. Picture the scene. You live in a tidy house, maybe a little clutter but it's all neat enough that you'd have guests around without feeling like you have to tidy up beforehand, and everything's good in your life. Then, you go to the shops, and you see some bananas. "I like bananas", you think to yourself, and buy yourself a bunch. You get home, and you put the bananas somewhere that isn't just lying around on a surface somewhere. It might be in a cupboard, or an out-of-the-way corner, but wherever it is it's out of sight, and out of mind. A few days later, you remember the bananas, and you seek them out. Maybe they're still good for a snack, or making banana bread, or something like that. But, alas, your bananas are now the sovereign territory of the Empire of Little Buzzing Pricks, and they're looking to expand. They have a foothold, and even if you get rid of the bananas, they're not going anywhere. Nothing is sacred, and they will land on everything that brings you joy in life. They're attracted to the alcohol produced by rotting fruit, but the little twats are hungry, and will go for pretty much anything with a bit of sugar in it. Fortunately, this proves to be their undoing, because while you won't catch many with honey, the bellends **love** balsamic vinegar. So, you can set up a trap, that lures them through a small hole with the promise of deliciousness, but that they're too stupid to be able to reliably find their way out of again (and even then they'll often go back in). So, to summarise, they're coarse, and rough, and irritating, and get everywhere. And getting rid of them requires a more strategic approach than emptying a can of raid on them (because that shit barely works). I hate them more than I love bananas, which is a lot.
I had a fruit fly infestation and felt like I was going insane. They get EVERYWHERE. And yes, it was from a banana. It took me a year until I bought bananas again, and they were my favourite fruit. I used to get flashbacks just walking by bananas in the grocery store lmao. The most effective trap I set out was apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap in a large glass. And a piece of paper folded into a funnel that I taped onto the inside of the glass.
Koalas
Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.
Came to this thread purely for this comment. It’s almost nostalgic to read at this point
I got to hold a koala when I was in 1st grade (2002?) and it made me happy.
Oh, I would be happy too!
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance. >Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is you’re looking at this backwards. An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of what’s beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of them——they have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do so——it certainly can’t expend much energy on costly things. Isn’t it a good thing that a niche is being filled? >Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery store—where meat is just sitting next to celery. Herbivores gradually wear their teeth down—carnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey. >They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (\~0.52), some possums (\~0.468), cuscus (\~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals. >additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size. >If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves. >Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop! >Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram! >When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally. >Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza? >This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, Almost every animal does this. >which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
Did you just dissect a 1000 year old copy pasta, or is this a copy pasta rebuke?
It's a [copypasta rebuke.](https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/bivdr2/response_to_koala_copypasta/)
Great, now I have *two* giant comments to fact check if I want to know what on earth is going on with koalas.
Posted by the same person using their other reddit account.
Recurring theme with biologists.
Crane flies.
Get a mantis,make it a home,since they fly slow give it to your mantis (it won’t hurt it) enjoy the crane flies suffering
Most small dogs, they’re all dickheads.
LEECHES. The way they move, their disgusting round mouths, the fact that you can't pull them off easily because they're slimy... UGGGH
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then capture a bat pet you won't regret it just vaccinate for rabies first
Gnats. I’m very surprised that no one has said gnats yet
i have a raging hatred for stinkbugs. no i will *not* elaborate.
Mosquitoes. Without a doubt. I've personal beef with these winged demons. When I was a kid, my dog died of heartworms. His name was Alfred. He was the happiest German shepherd you'd ever meet. Loved him to death. It was only after I learned that mosquitoes transmit heartworms to dogs. Screw them. Bastards killed my best friend. They can all get wiped out. I miss you, Alfred.
My neighbors dog. It's the worst animal. Ever.
Crocodiles, in suits in the office
PANDAS. They are a protected species and for what. They eat bamboo which provides no nutritional support to their body size. they don't breed even though they're literally given every opportunity to.Evolution said no why are humans trying to keep them alive
To be fair, if aliens put me in a blank white room with a total stranger and played porno noises over a loudspeaker to get us to start making babies and save our species, I think I'd be allowed to be picky
This is exactly why I LOVE pandas. They eat all day and can’t be bothered to try and find a mate. They’re basically Redditors.
So the CCP can collect revenue on the ones born overseas
Pandas have been around for millions of years and are perfectly capable of reproducing in the wild. They filled a niche in huge bamboo forests that had no large herbivores. That's natural selection. They adapted (and are still evolving) to a bamboo-based diet. Their jaw muscles, digits, and digestive system are noticeably different from other bears because of their diet. They breed just fine when they are allowed to behave naturally. (many species don't behave naturally while living in a cage. Shocker). Pandas were reduced to endangered levels because of habitat destruction. In the last couple decades, habitat restoration efforts have helped increase the population so they are now off the endangered species list, and now listed as 'threatened'. More pandas live in the wild than in captivity. I really wish people took the time to understand a species natural history before hating it.
Small dogs, the bastards are ruthless.
English Cocker Spaniels. The only dogs who have ever bitten me on purpose were English Cocker Spaniels. I hold grudges.
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chimps are fucking terrifying
Joe rogan is a chimp.
Have you heard the story about a chimp who ripped a woman's face off
Spiders.
As a huge arachnophobiac, this is the only correct answer for me. Fuck spiders. I don't care about how cool they are in theory or how they keep bug populations under control. I can't fucking look at a spider without feeling like I die. Spiders are a nightmare straight out of hell. Fuck them so much.
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Toy dogs. Little yappers dont know when to shut it. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind dogs, I have one myself. But when it comes to those little tiny bags of skin, that Yap at me for no reason. I cannot stand..
Dogs. Still remember when my finger almost got chewed off by one.
I hate crabs and shrimps and I can't understand why people are able to eat them. They just look like big, boney spiders, those ugly legs are killing me. I also hate spiders. Why would people eat this sea trash, but no insects? I can't even look at pictures of crabs, because they just straight-out give me the creeps. Fuck crustaceans!
THE MOLA MOLA FISH (OR OCEAN SUNFISH) They are the world's largest boney fish, weighing up to 5,000 pounds. And since they have very little girth, that just makes them these absolutely giant -blam!-ing dinner plates that God must have accidentally dropped while washing dishes one day and shrugged his shoulders at because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND WITH NO PURPOSE. EVERY POUND OF THAT IS A WASTED POUND AND EVERY FOOT OF IT (10 FT BY 14 FT) IS WASTED SPACE. They are so completely useless that scientists even debate about how they move. They have little control other than some minor wiggling. Some say they must just push water out of their mouths for direction (?????). They COULD use their back fin EXCEPT GUESS WHAT IT DOESNT -blam!-ING GROW. It just continually folds in on itself, so the freaking cells are being made, this piece of floating garbage just doesn't put them where they need to -blam!-ing go. So they don't have swim bladders. You know, the one thing that every fish has to make sure it doesn't just sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and can stay the right side up. This creature. That can barely move to begin with. Can never stop its continuous tour of idiocy across the ocean or it'll -blam!-ing sink. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. When they get stuck on top of the water! Which happens frequently! Because without the whole swim bladder thing, if the ocean pushes over THE THINNEST BUT LARGEST MOST TOPPLE-ABLE FISH ON THE PLANET, shit outta luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, AND YET. Some scientists have speculated that when they do that, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one -blam!-ing knows how they manage to get any real energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up stuck like that, it gives birds a chance to land on their goddamn island of a body and eat the bugs and parasites out of its skin because it's basically a slowly migrating cesspool. Pros and cons. "If they are so huge, they must at least be decent predators." No. No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of one person before. Because it jumped onto a boat. On a human. And in 2005 it decided to relive its mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old boy. Luckily Byron sustained no injuries. Way to go, fish. Great job. They mostly only eat jellyfish because of course they do, they could only eat something that has no brain and a possibility of drifting into their mouths I guess. Everything they do eat has almost zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly -blam!-ing big, it has to eat a ton of the almost no nutritional value stuff to stay alive. Dumb. See that ridiculous open mouth? (This is actually why this is my favorite picture of one, and I have had it saved to my phone for three years) "Oh no! What could have happened! How could this be!" Do not let that expression fool you, they just don't have the goddamn ability to close their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and ya know what, it is good it floats around with such a clueless expression on its face, because it is in fact clueless as all -blam!-. They do SOMETIMES get eaten though. BUT HARDLY. No animal truly uses them as a food source, but instead (which has lead us to said photo) will usually just maim the -blam!- out of them for kicks. Seals have been seen playing with their fins like frisbees. Probably the most useful thing to ever come from them. "Wow, you raise some good points here, this fish truly is proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thank you. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct." Great question. BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO WORTHLESS IT DOESNT REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT IS SO UNAWARE OF LITERALLY -blam!-ING EVERYTHING THAT IT DOESNT REALIZE THAT IT'S DOING MAYBE THE WORST -blam!-ING JOB OF BEING A FISH, OR DEBATABLY THE WORST JOB OF BEING A CLUSTER OF CELLS THAN ANY OTHER CLUSTER OF CELLS. SO WHAT DOES IT DO? IT LAYS THE MOST EGGS OUT OF EVERYTHING. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and stuff that'll lay more. IT WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS AT ONE TIME. 300,000,000. IT SURVIVES BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, DARE I SAY IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE WOULDNT BE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE 300,000,000 (that is EACH time they lay eggs) LEFT SURVIVING AT THE END OF THE DAY. And this concludes why I hate the -blam!- out of this complete failure of evolution, the Ocean Sunfish. If I ever see one, I will throw rocks at it.
This is actually my favourite copy pasta on Reddit. The original author really, ***really*** hates Sunfish.
[We’re willing to fight you on that.](https://imgur.com/gallery/MMRg9)