Popular Science described the suffering from a velvet ant's sting as "30 minutes of life-changing, pray-for-death pain. Unlike other intimidating species of spiders, wolf spiders can be found nearly everywhere in the world, regardless of habitat. The good news? While they may be perceived as incredibly deadly by their prey, they aren't as likely to do as much damage to humans. However, if a wolf spider feels as though it is continuously being provoked, it will inject venom into its pursuer.
Upon being bitten, you are likely to experience symptoms like swelling, mild pain, and itching at the site of the attack. Found mostly in the Eastern United States, saddleback caterpillars are just as strange-looking as they are dangerous.
According to the University of Florida's Entomology and Nematology departments , these creatures tend to embed their long spines displayed in the photograph above into their victims whenever they feel threatened.
Unfortunately for anyone or anything on the receiving end of this prickly attack, these spines contain hemolytic and blister-forming venom that causes direct tissue damage in its victims. As far as humans are concerned, though, this sting only results in mild to moderate pain—though some who have been stung claim that the sting is more painful than that of a bee or wasp.
The southern black widow spider—as its name suggests—is mainly found in the Southern portion of the country, most commonly in the state of Florida.
And in a similar fashion to the black widow spiders in other regions of the country, the bite of a southern black widow can be incredibly painful and harmful to both humans and small animals. According to Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences , while the pain of a southern black widow bite isn't noticeable until a few hours out from the attack, it proves to be nearly intolerable once it kicks in.
The symptoms of a southern widow spider bite include nausea, chills, slight fever, a rise in blood pressure, a burning sensation of the skin, fatigue , and motor disturbances—though after four days, these symptoms generally dissipate. The fearsome creature known as the buck moth caterpillar can be found anywhere in the Eastern United States—but if you do happen to come across one, you'll want to try your best not to provoke it. After causing immediate pain, the sting from this caterpillar's multi-branched urticating spines spreads to the lymphatic nodes where it has the power to do incredible damage to the body.
In cases where the victims receive multiple stings from the buck moth caterpillar, hemorrhaging around the site of the sting—and even death, in rare cases—can occur.
Typically found in the Southwestern region of the United States, the Maricopa harvester ant holds one of the most toxic venoms known to man, according to Navajo Nature.
However, though the venom produced by this species of ant can kill smaller vertebrates, it typically only produces a slight pain in humans. To kill a human, the Maricopa harvester ant would need to sting at least times. For those who rely on ash trees to pay the bills—or even for those environmentalists trying to preserve the country's untouched land—the emerald ash borer is Public Enemy No.
Though the insect may not immediately affect the health of humans, it does pose long-term economic problems for the entire country. However, with the presence of this invasive species slowly devouring the large populations of ash trees in the state, New York alone could lose millions, if not billions, of dollars in the coming years if these insects aren't eradicated. Since , the mountain pine beetle has managed to destroy millions of acres of ponderosa and lodgepole pine trees in Colorado.
At the beginning of , an annual assessment by the state's forest service found the bothersome beetles in some , acres of trees in Colorado. So, though the mountain pine beetle doesn't present an imminent threat to the health of humans, it does present both an economical and environmental danger to all forms of life in the United States.
Though the hag moth looks essentially harmless, experts at the University of Kentucky's Entomology Department beg to differ. As it turns out, these moths actually possess nine pairs of fleshy lobes equipped with savage stinging hairs. Reactions from a hag moth sting can range from mild itching to more severe pain, swelling, blistering, dermatitis, and even intestinal problems. Though they don't necessarily pose life-threatening harm to their human victims, lice do prove to be an incredibly annoying disturbance.
According to the Mayo Clinic , those affected with head lice can expect symptoms ranging from intense itching to small red bumps on the scalp, neck, and shoulders. Thanks to all the havoc they're wreaked on crops intended to feed large populations of people, locusts have been blamed for thousands of deaths over the years. Since the rule of the Ancient Egyptians, the presence of locusts has been feared—so much so, in fact, that the insects were used as a threat in the Iliad , the Bible , and the Quran.
While the citrus long-horned beetle can't physically hurt humans, it does pose a serious threat to habitats all across the United States. Since it was discovered in in Athens, Georgia, the insect has devoured thousands of hardwood trees across the United States—and according to the University of Florida's Entomology and Hematology departments , it could cost millions if not billions of dollars to eradicate.
Similar to the other caterpillars on this list, spiny oak-slug caterpillars are equipped with a series of stinging spines that, when injected into a human's skin, can cause pain, itching, burning, irritation, and redness.
And though this creepy caterpillar's sting is not considered lethal, those who are allergic to other insect stings should be wary of coming in contact with this creature, as they are at risk of experiencing an allergic reaction. Though the effect of the wheat weevil on stored grains around the world has never been properly documented, the insect is known to do significant damage to harvested stored grains in all corners of the world, the United States included.
These evil weevils eat wheat, oats, rye, barley, rice, and corn, and they significantly impact the yield of these crops for nearly every farmer, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. In the states that often see warmer temperatures all year long, Asian citrus psyllids pose a serious threat to citrus plants and their relatives.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture , these insects are actually the carriers of a bacterium that causes Huanglongbing disease, or citrus greening disease, which has been proven to be one of the most harmful citrus plant diseases in the world.
Search KidsHealth library. More to Know Examples of common venomous bites or stings are those from bees, wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, and fire ants.
Keep in Mind Most of the time, venomous bites and stings are just nuisances that can be treated at home with pain relievers, topical ointments applied to the skin , and antihistamines. All A to Z dictionary entries are regularly reviewed by KidsHealth medical experts. A Tarantula Bit Me! David Rivers, Ph.
When Rivers co-authored a textbook, The Science of Forensic Entomology, published earlier this year, he included a chapter about insects that produce toxins that can kill people under certain circumstances.
Loyola magazine invited Rivers to introduce us to a few of the deadliest insects in the world, and he was happy to comply. In that regard, we do have some that are close by: There are two, and they are both ant species. But if the cow steps on any, a chemical signal in the venom gland, an alarm pheromone, is released that mobilizes the colony for group attack.
Known in the southwestern United States since the s, red fire ants have been on a northern expansion which is projected to reach Maryland someday. A dozen biting, stinging, venom-injecting, shock-inducing, and disease-carrying insects and arachnids. These are some bad bugs. Welcome to Danger Week.
So swallow that lump in your throat and keep reading. Insects suck. They also bite and sting. Some inject venom that can kill outright or produce a deadly allergic reaction. Others, like mosquitoes, spread parasites that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people annually. The list below, just to be clear, is taxonomically laid-back. The deadliest insect is, in fact, the deadliest critter in the entire animal kingdom. It is the humble mosquito, which kills more than , people every year.
Skeeters are vectors for a host of nasty diseases, including malaria, dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, and lymphatic filariasis. Malaria is the big one: In , roughly , people died of the disease worldwide.
Mosquitoes have a special organ, the maxillary palp, which detects CO2 released from our breath and guides them to us, where they consume three times their own weight in blood. Mosquitoes are known to prefer beer drinkers, probably because drinking a beer increases the ethanol content in your sweat. Ethanol turns mosquitoes on. Plus, all booze increases your body temperature, which makes you easier for a mosquito to find. People of greater body mass attract more bugs for the same reason.
Mosquitoes also prefer people with O type blood. Nobody knows exactly why, but the assumption is that O-blood-type people smell better, to mosquitoes at least, than everybody else. The odd members of the subfamily Triatominae are also known as kissing bugs or vampire bugs for their tendency to bite humans around the soft tissue of the mouth.
The insects are found in 28 states in the U. However, the ones here rarely carry Chagas disease, and the cases in the U.
Chagas kills about 12, people annually worldwide. Victims are typically asymptomatic for four to eight weeks. Even in the chronic phases, most people show few symptoms, but 45 percent develop heart disease 10 to 30 years after the initial infection, and this can lead to heart failure.
Native to tropical Africa, these big, biting flies spread the parasitic infection that causes African sleeping sickness, a disease that is percent fatal without treatment, and the treatment itself is notoriously difficult.
There are drugs, but they must be administered with great care, and parasite resistance to them is always a risk. If bitten by an infected tsetse fly, you develop confusion, poor coordination, numbness, and difficulty sleeping. Then you die, most likely. Because the disease is so fatal, recent mitigation efforts have focused on controlling the bugs themselves, which has reduced the number of cases exponentially.
0コメント