Wtf is this?!

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

I went to check my mail this afternoon and saw this hanging on the front of the box!

https://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k490/noxtheroxstar/IMG_0097_zpsewhqplky.jpg

 

The photo doesn't really do the bug much justice seeing as this thing is damn near as big as my thumb.

 

https://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k490/noxtheroxstar/IMG_0098_zpszlmilfmm.jpg

 

I tried searching google image and all it brings up is desktop computers, I guess it thinks the mailbox is a PC. Maybe if I crop it down to just the bug? I'm no Entomologist, I don't know if it's native to the USA or the midwest or what. Notice the orange on the feet and antenna? First thought was:

 

https://static5.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2909108-xcom+2_chryssalid_screenshot_02.jpg

 

Whatever the hell it is, it scared the shit outta me.

 

-NoX

[silencer_pl]

Well then, Australia is not for you.

[Space Voyager]

[Zombie]

I saw one last year right around this time also, as I remember stepping on it and seeing the bug juices squirt out all over the place. Dunno if it's native to the Midwest as I've only ever seen one of them. It wasn't as big as my thumb - maybe half that but still an impressive looking insect.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Sweet dreams:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=insect+in+australia&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=935&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhl7HFxo_OAhWlIJoKHZj2ANAQsAQIIw

[Space Voyager]

Nothing special. Scorpion and Black Widow scare me the most, but they both reside in Europe, too. Ok, scorpion might be a bit more dangerous there (don't care to google), but Black Widow is just as potent in Dalmatia (Croatia). We caught several during our vacations in Barbariga...

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Well I emailed a few Entomologists yesterday so hopefully one of them emails me back and tells me it's either a harmless beetle-esque insect OR it's an unknown insect because if it IS undiscovered I get to name it. With my luck it'll be some super rare poisonous bug that hopped a plane from Cambodia or some 3rd world P.O.S. country and found it's way to my house.

 

-NoX

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Well I finally got a response back from Professor Sites from the University of Missouri.

He says, "This looks like it’s probably Acanthocephala terminalis, a common coreid bug of the eastern U.S"

 

So I Googled it and found this.

 

Interesting stuff indeed.

 

-NoX

[Space Voyager]

Nice detective work!

[Tsathoggua]

You got a definite ID then? if not, from the body shape I would have suggested an assassin bug of some kind. Assassin bugs are true bugs, 'bug' sensu stricto, denoting those arthropoda with a rostrum, the oral apparatus consisting of a hollow tube, like a hypodermic needle, almost always kept folded underneath the body when not actively in use, and most are predatory, the assassin bugs certainly are. Rather nasty little customers in fact, they stalk other insect or other prey, stab it with the rostrum whilst injecting a cocktail of corrosive digestive enzymes and venom, liquifying the insides of the prey it has taken as its victim and then sucking up the resulting innard soup out of the dead or dying prey.

 

Quite effective killers, for things in their size range, nonlethal to humans, but quite a number of species are also, in addition to feeding with it, use the venom/digestive proteolytic enzyme mixture defensively, although as far as I know, not offensively. Or at least they are not known for doing so, I see no reasoning by which biological limitations would impede the creatures from doing so, but with insects, instinct is sine qua non and it is not common if it does occur offensively. But they can deploy their rostrum and squirt a stream of venom and digestive enzymes which is reportedly excruciating if it gets in the eye, like the spitting cobras of the snake world, at least, of the elapids. There is also a viper that can do so, the mangshan pitviper, which whilst to the extent of my knowledge of the species, they don't have the fang structure of spitting cobras, elapid (fixed front-fanged snakes, excluding the hydrophiinae, the sea snakes which also have fixed front oriented fangs) snakes that are spitters have openings in the front, enabling the venom to be fired with deadly accuracy, right in the eyes of an aggressor, whilst the mangshan viper IIRC, throws its head and presumably fromt section of the body forward, releasing venom. The snake equivalent of a human gobbing on somebody, only worse. Especially considering that unlike most elapids, viperinae have as opposed to neurotoxic venom, or in the case of some such as brown snakes (mulga) of australia, and taipan, tiger snakes, also haemotoxic type venom. The vipers can be told from the ability to fold their fangs up into the roof of the mouth and typically have much, much larger fangs. With one exception notable, the mojave rattlesnake, or rather, some mojave rattlers have in addition to typical flesh-eating, corrosive, haemolytic venom, a subpopulation produces a venom component known as mojave toxin which, uniquely for a rattlesnake, and indeed extremely rare amongst vipers, is neurotoxic also. And theres an oddball amongst the elapidae, which is unique, the australian death adder. It looks like a viper, big,flattened arrowhead-shaped head, very large venom glands, and a short, stocky build of body, much like a puff adder, a true viper. But the death adder, is no adder at all, in fact it is an elapid, with foldable fangs.)

 

As for the sea snakes, nasty mixture of neurotoxic, cardiotoxic and powerfully myotoxic (causing rhabdomyolysis, destruction of muscle tissue systemically, with the breakdown products flooding the kidneys as a secondary effect of the myotoxic venom fraction, most hydrophiinae have, tiny fangs, front oriented, fixed, but whilst the deadliest snakes known to man are amongst the sea snakes, they are usually docile and slow to anger, but possessed of the deadliest venom of all the snake families known by a long shot. The other, remaining venomous snakes are some of the colubrids, back-fanged snakes, they have fixed fangs at the back of the mouth, quite primitive compared to the other snake families, and generally either do not present much threat due to lack of venom potency or have trouble biting a human and effectively delivering their venom. Copperheads are an example, not pleasant to be bitten, but unlikely to kill a healthy adult. The two main exceptions being the twig snake, and the boomslang, Dispholidus typhus. Both tree snakes, and whilst back fanged, and having some trouble latching on and getting the fangs in, a bite in which they deliver venom, is serious, and indeed quite easily fatal to a healthy adult human. Primarily powerful heamotoxic venom which destroys red blood cells, causes kidney damage and like the venom of taipan and relatives, and many of the vipers* interferes with blood clotting, resulting in internally bleeding out, or disseminated intravascular coagulation (aka DIC) where prior to depletion of certain clotting factors** the venom causes the blood to clot uncontrollably, causing emboli and resultant blockages throughout the vasculature.

 

*&** in fact such a viper venom, that of Russel's viper (Daboia russeli), is used for diagnostic (in vitro, that is) testing for lupus, specifically for lupus anticoagulant antibodies owing to the ability of the venom to induce clotting caused by its activating clotting factors V and X, which unlike some other such pro-thrombotic clotting factor activating substances, since it doesn't rely on initiation of a cascade of effects but activates factor V and factor X directly, is useful due to the possibility of some such patients positive for lupus anticoagulant to also have deficiencies, as can other people, in other clotting factors, which if the agent used to induce clotting in the samples worked indirectly, initiating the first step along the clotting factor cascade, or other points, would fail in patients deficient in these clotting factors, to cause their blood to coagulate and cause a false negative test result.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilute_Russell%27s_viper_venom_time This is a more in depth explanation, including the second test phase, the dilute russel's viper venom test, if such natural history trivia catch anyone else's interest.

 

As for the assassin bugs-here's a summary. BTW in addition to being able to spray venom/digestive fluids they bite and it is reportedly extremely painful. Certainly won't kill anyone, but NASTY bites.

 

 

I'd not use anything citing homeopathy in a positive sense as a reliable source thiough. However it was rather amusing, for its being so apt, the quotations about talking shit. Comes with the territory for a homeopath or those that refuse to believe their 'remedies' are anything but water. Homeopathy is the pseudoscientific 'medical' equivalent to attempting to get high by inhaling the fumes coming off fermenting shit. And anything attempting to make homeopathy look more legitimate is, quite simply, polishing a turd, as the saying goes here.