Ladybugs are predators too and they look cute. You have no excuse.
Pish, ladybugs. Not even a true bug. They only look cute so they can let you know that they’re toxic. And if you try to bother them they’ll start bleeding from the knees. They’re lucky most of their food is a pest.
They only look cute so they can let you know that they’re toxic.
I eat them anyways. Don’t bother me none.
And who decides what a true bug is, huh? Bullshit pseudoscientific taxonomists?
Cats are also predators.
More like genocidal sociopaths. Can you guess what two species are the main cause of multiple extinctions?
https://www.theextinctions.com/articles-1/the-flightless-wren-and-the-lighthousekeepers-cat
they also eat bedbugs and other harmful pests, they’re awesome other than being fucking terrifying.
I have a super old house that has these in it, along with spiders and other various creepy crawlies (nothing dangerously venomous in the area, save one spider species I’ve never seen, which only produces mild tissue necrosis).
I really don’t mind them -certainly not enough to do anything about them- and the cats like chasing them in the middle of the night, so whatever.
But man, on the rare occurrence I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and see one in the red light of the nightlight, skittering across the wall with a quickness, scares the bejesus out of me. Every. Damn. Time.
Do they ever crawl on you? I’ve found that if I ever spot a spider in my house, in the next week I’ll find it somewhere on me
Literally never, no. Occasionally they hang from their silk and get close, but not super often.
But my spiders know me. They see me every day and know I’m not gunna bother them even if I see them (I even talk to them sometimes) so they give me a wide berth as well. They mostly hang out where I can’t (or won’t) reach, which works for me. Only downside is cleaning up webs a few times a year.
What kind of spiders are crawling on you? That’s pretty unusual from what I understand, unless they just blow down on their silk or whatever? Or maybe you have a lot more spiders than I do and they just hide better ;)
Had a spider bro in my bathroom for a month, one day he disappeared. The very next night I woke up to him crawling on my face. It was unfortunate for us both.
I think the spiders here hide well, so the ones I spot are the risky ones that don’t mind scuttling over me.
Huh. Ngl, that’s super weird, but I’m sorry that’s your experience, because this harmony thing I’ve got going on is pretty sweet, and I wish it for everyone. Tho the random bumblebee that finds her way to my living room 2-3x/yr perplexes me…
I like to imagine that it’s the same bumblebee every time…
Huh, I had a talk with our house spiders. I told them the bathroom and bedrooms were off limits.
So far, none have survived our bathroom encounters.
Not crawling on me but I found one of these mother fuckers in my pants by putting on the pants. Was not excited to find out why my leg hair was moving
Man and my wife and I complain about sugar ants infesting our kitchen.
Yeesh…
Oh yeah, ants I don’t fuck around with. They get liquid bait whenever I see one inside. Fruit flies also get traps (red wine in a glass, cover with plastic wrap and poke some holes, add a drop of dish soap to the wine to break surface tension so they fall in and drown)
But harmless insects/arachnids are fine by me. I grew up in an old house in the woods, catching snakes and bugs in brush piles with my cat. It’s sort of what I expect living to be like, honestly.
Well then maYBE YOU SHOULDN’T ACTIVATE MY INSTINCTIVE FEAR RESPONSE BY MOVING SO DAMN FAST!
see, jumping spiders understand this. they recognize that we’re effectively gods and their lives are entirely in our hands, so they damn well stand still and try to look non-threatening.
Until the jumping
The jumping
At least they have the decency to try to look cute! House centipedes just come right out with “You can hate me but you’ll never catch me fuckers!” as they damn near burn a track into the floor
Jumping spiders are so cute. I taught my 5 year old to call them “spider bros.”
He does not know what a bro is.
That is so cute. Thanks for making me smile today; I needed it.
Is there a spider bro sublemmy yet?
Edit: There is! !spiderbro@lemmy.world
At least they can’t fly. Yet.
This is how women feel when people tell them to smile more
This is how I feel when people tell me to look happier. I have punched at least one person in the face for saying said shit.
I wish
The travails of living with RBF 😔
I had an ex girlfriend who used to tell me to smile more. I guess I was her trophy boyfriend
PSA for people with cockroach problems: Diatomaceous earth is a lifesaver! Non toxic, (also a good fertilizer for the garden) and keeps working until it gets wet.
What is it? fossils of diatoms in a chalky-powder what do you do with it? Sprinkle (dusting) into hard to reach areas (think behind & under kitchen equipment, drawers, along baseboards)
what it does is sticks to anything with an exoskeleton & dehydrates them…they die.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth
we live in a humid, costal town where they are endemic and we have ZERO of these motherfuckers in our shop & home
Yes, I used to use this stuff all the time in my old roach infested apartment. And then I felt really bad for the cockroaches and had to stop though.
Nice to know I’m not the only one. I feel bad about them too.
HEY JOE HOWS THE WIFE?
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From Wikipedia
“Inhalation of crystalline silica is harmful to the lungs, causing silicosis. Amorphous silica is considered to have low toxicity, but prolonged inhalation causes changes to the lungs.[44] Diatomaceous earth is mostly amorphous silica but contains some crystalline silica, especially in the saltwater forms.[45] In a 1978 study of workers, those exposed to natural diatomaceous earth for over five years had no significant lung changes while 40% of those exposed to the calcined form had developed pneumoconiosis.[46] Today’s common diatomaceous earth formulations are safer to use, as they are predominantly made up of amorphous silica and contain little or no crystalline silica.”
Any type of dust isn’t good for you but this stuff is wayyyy better than some chemical companies toxic aerosol, drop poison, or bait
Also I move really fucking fast.
Deal with it
Why are people afraid of house centipedes? They already ARE cute! It’d be one thing if they were at least somewhat willing to bite you, like some spiders, but they won’t. They’ve got the best eyesight of any centipede, which inadvertently gives them really cute little eyes too.
Though i agree they are harmless, they do not meet any classical, popular definition of cute
They have too many legs and move too quickly. It just freaks me out, man.
My tiny lizard brain refuses to acknowledge their usefulness. Skittering and many legs? Dead!
Don’t forget the painful, venomous bite!
If I find one in my house, I’m killing it. They’re my irrational fear. You can’t talk me out of it.
The reasoned par of my brain wholeheartedly agrees with you, and when I can convince myself to do so, I let them vibe. Unfortunately the reasoned part of my brain is powerless to stop the fight or flight response that happens when [spindly-legged creature] crosses my field of view. It simply happens.
If reasoning alone could overcome an otherwise unreasonable physiological response, then allergies wouldn’t exist.
For me it’s the fact that I lived in a desertic place for most of my life and centipedes there have a very painful bite
I know house centipedes are smaller and harmless but it’s difficult to re-train the brain
Edit: words
Gosh this was hard to read. Those centipedes really did a number on you huh!
They creep me the fuck out. I know they’re harmless and beneficial to have but when I turn on my bathroom light and see one on the wall above my toilet I have to get rid of it. They’re literally the only bug that freaks me out, even roaches aren’t that bad to me.
For me, they manage to trigger the “SNAKE!” and “SPIDER!” panic responses simultaneously. The rational part of my brain likes them, the instinctual part tells me to smash it with a rock
I still appreciate it a lot
I’ve heard of a legend of a man named Joe who lived with cockroaches in his apartment.
I’ve heard stories about another Joe in whose garage we could jam
Imagine if these things were huge. Like horse sized, or even duck sized.
Don’t joke about that shit bro, last time they got that big they killed my great grandfather.
Have you ever seen starship troopers?
I’m pretty sure if these things were horse sized that the human race would never have made it out of caves.
If these things eat cockroaches they are either 1) insanely fast or 2) ambush predators, and still probably very fast.
I think I’d rather go toe to toe with a velociraptor.
Usually extremely fast and venomous
Dude (or dudette) they fucking WERE.
I saw one catch a silverfish by literally jumping off the roof onto it and gobbling it up in seconds. I’m appalled to this day by the sheer brutality.
No thank you, I don’t want to imagine this please
I see these leggy boys in my basement all the time. Wolf spiders, leggy boys, and me are allies. I often have to save the spiders from my cats. Damn things suck at not dying to cats. Never seen my cats kill one of these tho.
Get rid of their food, they go away.
Not saying you should do that… but if, you find the wolf spiders are assholes that like to run across your face while you’re sleeping, for example…
Hahahaha. Jeez I hope not. I love the little guys but I’d flip the fuck out. I drop them down into my basement, usually never see them again tho sometimes they make their way up to the main house.
Yeah. I’m okay with spiders or the leggy bois.
As long as they’re over… there.
I have gecko(s) instead, and I need to stop my dad from destroying them
Never had any cockroaches (do they even exist in Germany?) but I have those from time to time in my basement. Not sure what they eat there.
Go to the USA Southern States if you want to see cockroaches. Holy shit, man! The warm weather and humidity are like steroids to them. They get as big as a mouse, and they don’t care if you have the cleanest building in the world, they’re still going to invade and wake you from your sleep by crawling on your face.
I think I’ll pass
Smart choice.
Those American Cockroaches don’t breed indoors though. They are transients and are relatively benign compared to the German roaches which will fine the single square mm of your home without pest treatment and then evolve resistance to it.
They eat anything that is smaller than they are legs included. They’ll eat anything from bed bugs to spiders. I even saw one chewing of a wasp at one point.
I mean…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cockroach
To be fair, they really originated elsewhere, but Germany certainly has cockroaches. I think Germany is probably too cold for them to be a big problem, though.
You mean the climate or, like, emotionally?
Yes.
Climate. Y’all’re only emotionally cold sober
If anyone understands how to eradicate an entire population of organisms via chemical genocide, it’s the Germans.
Edit: Not associated with lemmygrad or anything in those instances. That was just the instance that sounded most likely to have this community.
Lest we forget
wow, TIL. Never seen them.
They eat other insects. All of them, not just roaches.
Well, good to keep them around then.
Very much so but people often kill them for looking nasty. When in reality they totally depend on humans to survive. And provide nothing else than benefits to us. They need warmth of our homes and very specific climate. They can’t survive outdoors.
i mean, inducing a panic attack isn’t very beneficial
By their nature they won’t actually eliminate an infestation. They are territorial so they won’t ever have the population numbers to eliminate populations of other bugs. They are, at best, an indicator that you need an exterminator soon.
I don’t think they are an indicator for an infestation. At least not where I live.
There’s 100% cockroaches in Germany, there is literally a species of cockroach called “german cockroach”
yeah, they were first believed to have originated from germany; currently science places them as an southeast asian expatriate with a pit stop in NE africa. It’s too cold for them to live outside of human settlements in germany, although i’m pretty sure that will change in the next years, and then the name fits at last.
Depends what you mean by cockroach. I haven’t seen the pests around. But there are some smaller ones that are sometimes also found inside the house. I frequently find this one in my home for example, which is really cute <3
Yes, I know those. They accidentally end up in houses but they can’t survive there, they can only live outside.
Dragonflies
nature’s cool as fuck attack helicopter
Fish: Oooh, dragonfly larva, I’ll help myself to a nice meal
Dragonfly larva: you are mistaken about who is the meal here
Eyelash bugs.
Thousand leggers
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It doesn’t even get to pay taxes. Why bother?