What in nature freaks you out. I hate Luna moths. I mean are they a leaf or a moth?

[applegrove]

Pisses me off. I think I hate them because I did not grow up with them...they just appeared on the scene one day when I was 25.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=luna+moths&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=0UtgToUD4uPRAdmbrfoP&ved=0CCYQsAQ&biw=693&bih=389

[swimboy]

1. They don't have mouths, I'm sorry to say, as this makes them freakier.

I don't like slime molds. They move about and I'm nervous about how they decide.

[applegrove]

2. Don't know that I'd recognize a slime mold if I saw one.

[swimboy]

3. Pools of foam that show up, hang out, then show up somewhere else

They come in many forms and colors and travel of their own volition.

[petronius]

22. Creepy! I always thought "slime mold" was just a low-level monster invented

by D & D authors (although I'm sure I've seen them in the woods, just never felt inclined to look close or do any research)...

[UTUSN]

5. O.K., I don't know if DUer swimboy is joking, but here's a slime mold

It invited itself out of a tree stump in my back yard and grossed me out. I didn't know what it was. As usual, there was somebody here at the DU Lounge who knew what it was. As for my moth visitor, it was unassuming, took a (nap?) in my window screen, in the shade so the pic doesn't do the incredible texture of the patterned wings justice.

I'm really not trying to gross you out if these things are not your favorite things!1

[applegrove]

6. Now that looks like some mold ive seen in the wild. That moth by the way does not scare me. I grew

up with moths like that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Here's a slime mold that turned up in my yard last summer.

Interestingly, this is often called "Dog Vomit Slime Mold."

It's harmless but disgusting-looking. It often grows on wood mulch in wet weather (where this stuff turned up). It shrivels up and disappears within a couple of days.

[pitohui]

21. i have always liked yellow or orange slime molds

not advanced enough to know species but i have encountered some vivid slime moths in the past, they can be just as attractive as an autumn leaf

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I love luna moths - they are beautiful.

Slime mold, on the other hand...

[EFerrari]

8. The food chain. It isn't good. If nobody had mouths, that would be fine

with me.

One of the cats just realized she's a hunter and she brings me live field mice. The displacement is inconvenient for everyone. Anyway, I don't need any field mice.

[pokerfan]

9. Jumping Spiders (Salticidae)

[HopeHoops]

10. Wait, isn't that last one MFM wearing overalls?

[pokerfan]

12. I miss MFM n/t

[mainegreen]

11. Web building spiders with large abdomens.

Especially if they are shiny.

Hunting spiders? No problem. Web builders with even proportions? Ewwwish, but still ok.

Web builder with small head and HUGE SHINY BLACK ABDOMENS?
Run away! Scream! Run away!

:scared:

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Same here! Well, the hunters freak me out because they are so fast, but those

bulbous ones... yikes!

[distantearlywarning]

39. +1000

I can't take those kind of spiders psychologically. At all. They seriously freak the shit out of me. :scared:

It's sad, because in the land of reality (as opposed to the land of the irrational dark corners of my brain) those are some of the most harmless spiders. Most of them are pretty docile, and non-venomous, and they eat lots of bad bugs.

But they're just so...bulbousy...and icky...and GROSS! :scared: :scared: :scared: :puke: :puke: :puke:

On Edit: I think both Luna Moths and Praying Mantises are beautiful. Mantises are my favorite insect.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. They are magnificent.

Edit: But your question was "What in nature freaks you out"?

Humans.

[applegrove]

15. I've seen the best and worst of humanity. Yup. Nothing scarrier than an evil human.

[Arugula Latte]

27. Dick Cheney comes to mind, but it's still unclear if he is actually human.

[BNJMN]

30. Makes you wonder what role we play in nature.

The grotesquely adaptive parasitoid that mindlessly eats the planet,
and destroys the host it depends on for life, I'm guessing.


Ron Cobb's cartoons come to mind. Here's one now:


The rest are equally awesome.
(imo)

[hifiguy]

16. Centipedes!

YUUUUUUCK! I have literally gone after them with a hammer, they freak me out so much. Millipedes, OTOH, don't freak me out at all.

When I had a house instead of the apartment I am in I left the spiders alone if they were in the window wells. They eat the other bugs and don't bother me at all.

Those luna moths are quite beautiful, I must say.

[Burma Jones]

17. Oscar

[Shagbark Hickory]

18. Bears, snakes, wildcats, wolves and sharks.

[applegrove]

19. Oh yeah. I hate bears too.

[pitohui]

20. what really? luna moths are my favorite moth!!!!

how can you hate a luna moth, they're beautiful

[applegrove]

23. I grew up with the brown and beige kind. Luna moths look like they have been contaminated

with nuclear fallout to me.

[AsahinaKimi]

24. Tsunami

no thank you...

[pink-o]

25. Only two species really creep me out: Rats and cockroaches.

Especially when they grow to humongous proportions: In the Caribbean, the roaches are the size of Pomeranians. And the rats in my home town have been known to look more like capybaras. Yuck. Disgusting, disease-ridden vermin, both. (Can you tell I'm a city girl? This is how I interpret "Nature").

But that being said, there is no species on this planet as vile and hideous as my own. Also, no species that can uplift me and give me joy as much as my own. Humans have the capacity for amazing greatness and amazing destruction.

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. Gotta go with roaches.

spiders, snakes, even centipedes, are huge down here, but no problem.

roaches are BIG and the damn things fly!

They are sometimes called "palmetto bugs" as if that makes them less nauseating.
Only thing that gives me the ooggies.

[BNJMN]

36. Ever catch two cockroachs mating? They can run backwards surprisingly fast. [nt]

[Arugula Latte]

26. Spiders.

Although it is not their fault that they are so universally incredibly hideously creepy, I despise them. :scared:

[Zephie]

29. Oppossums! They're the worst.

They're practically giant rats. Giant rats that pretend to be dead so that you get close enough for them to get you. :scared: There's nothing good about them.

[murielm99]

31. My husband feels exactly that way.

He calls them giant rats. I don't care for coons or skunks, either. All three are varmints that can do a lot of damage on a farm.

[Supply Side Jesus]

32. brain matter....yuck

that shit sticks and leave a gross residue. I use to like chicken skin till I dealt with that crap, now I can't enjoy it anymore. :(


Praying Mantises also...

[BNJMN]

33. Parasites, Sinkholes, humanity's slow decent into mindless self-destruction, (pics!)

A parasite that lives in your mouth and languidly eats your tongue.
And you can't do anything at all to stop it. Every time I feel something in the back of my throat, I think of this thing.

"Oh, Hai! I'm just rehearsing for the remakez of Aliens. LOL."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua


Skin eating bacteria.

(many more grosser pics than this, I'll spare you)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis

Other parasites, worms and wiggly terrors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parasites_of_humans
Sometimes, I have raised lines on the inside of my mouth.
Probably from sleeping weird and my teeth making 'imprints' but it freaks me out all the same.


Sinkholes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole

Flies / gnats in peoples faces.

http://culturesheet.org/_media/photographs:pests:fungus_gnat_female.jpg
"Hullo! I'll be buzzing in yur eyeball as you type comments on DU. LOL."

Frightening 'Natural' Mutations and Nuclear Deformaties
Google search the images if you want. I don't want to get banned.

'The Battle for Chernobyl' Director: Thomas Johnson
(free documentary, last 20 minutes are harrowing.)
YouTube:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319
Other:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-chernobyl/

One consequence of radioactive contamination, even 25 years later?
Microcephaly

Another example of microcephaly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcephaly#Causes
Intelligence levels are reported to be substantially lower surrounding Chernobyl.
Even today.

Amongst, other disturbing mutations.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mc_1fSoo2qE/TWLbi2FE09I/AAAAAAAAAIo/C9msutdABJE/s1600/nuclear+7.jpg
http://hoanw.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Also:
Asian Giant Hornets. A Dog with Mange. Dumbo Octopuses, Aye Ayes, Etc.
I mean, 'Nature' is vastly freaky and grim.
Our roles tend to be the worst I think.
What to make of that? Hmm...



Anyways, the worse thing that freaks me out?
The natural state of the Earth and...(wait for it...waaaait for iiit)

Humanity's inevitable, slow motion collapse.

"The book of humanity closes and the words "The End" are given upon us all, yet the story continues in a new location: Hell on Earth."

"It was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter in human history."
— Ron Perlman, Fallout 3 intro monologue.




Okay, back to possums and moths and stuff.
:)

[Bertha Venation]

34. A praying mantis once flew and landed on my cheek. I flailed and yelped.

Since then, I am freaked out by many flying bugs. Not bees, but wasps. Not house flies (though icky), but deer and horse flies. Not grasshoppers or katydids. Certainly not dragonflies or damselflies or butterflies. Not praying mantises, unless they fly.

And weird flying bugs TOTALLY freak me out. Like stink bugs. EW.

[pokerfan]

35. I love Mantids

Easily my favorite insect...

[alphafemale]

38. I love how they turn their head to look at you.

Awesome bug.

[pokerfan]

41. My head can't swivel 360°

I feel so inadequate...

[alphafemale]

37. This is a tad eeky to me

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

43. Naked mole rat?

Mammals that behave like insects. Definitely creepy.

[alphafemale]

45. It looks like a 95 yr old uncircumcised penis with a nasty over-bite.

poor thing

[alphafemale]

44. delete. wrong place.

[Amaril]

40. These

Golden Silk Orb Weavers -- 'tis their season, and they have taken over my yard. I have a "thing" about spiders, and this particular one is a thing of my nightmares. The females are HUGE -- their bodies alone are about 2 inches long.

Even though I loath spiders, I don't like to kill them (unless they try to kill me first......then it is SOOO on!) -- especially when they're outside, just doing their spidery thing -- but I had to kill several of these (actually, my ex-husband did it -- I didn't have the stomach for the carnage) because they -- and their massive webs (not an exaggeration -- one web alone was stretched across the space between the outside wall of the garage and a tree which made it about 5 feet wide) -- completely covered my side yard where the garbage can corral is located. I tried working around them, but it got to the point where I couldn't get near the cans to put out trash or to take the cans to the street on trash day.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

42. Luna moth:

One of the most beautiful critters on the planet.

[applegrove]

46. The Antenna even look like plant life. SEE WHAT I MEAN!!! Grrrrrrr...