Creepy crawly pets

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Many, many moons ago when our son was a teenager, he kept a snake in the house. This was without my permission as I’m afraid of and loathe the damn things.

But against my better wishes and to keep the peace, I left the matter alone, with his assurances that it could not get out of its tank.














Until it did.

It of course pushed the poorly secured lid up and slithered out.

I only found out about it days later when my wife told me. She’d kept its escape to herself for a while knowing I’d freak. And also do an I Told You So.

So long story short, our son had been looking for the snake, but not finding it, he did what teenagers do: he lost interest in it. The snake doesn’t turn up anywhere and gradually our nervousness goes away. Weeks turn into months. Pages fly off the calendar, until after six months we figure the thing died somewhere of starvation and we’ll find it someday when we clean out the closet in his room or something.

So one day our other son goes into the basement to do his weekly laundry, which goes down a clothes chute from upstairs. He picks up a pile of clothes from the basement floor and does an Olympic-level backwards long jump when he finds the snake under it.

I wasn’t there, thank god, to see any of this. Nor did we ever figure out how the snake got from his room on the second floor, down to the basement without anyone seeing it. But our older son picked up the snake and returned it to its (now more secure) tank.

Ugh. I’m with Indiana Jones on this one. I hate snakes.

I wasn't allowed to get a snake when I was a kid. So that's pretty much the first thing I did when I moved out, got a columbian boa and albino python.

I also once lived with somebody who had a 6 foot boa. One day when I went to the bathroom as soon as I open the door and walk in there it was, my head level, face in mine flicking its tongue, resting on the top of the shower glass door. It wasn't an escape. The roommate put it there while cleaning its tank and she didn't feel it was important to let me know that. Even though I like snakes, that's not a surprise position you want to be in, especially with a snake that size. Luckily it didn't strike at my face.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

These are my tailless whip scorpions. Amazing little critters whose appearance will probably make you go NOPE, but they are completely harmless to people.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

This is a test video I made for a youtube series I was going to do called Mantid Reviews. The concept was make videos of my various mantids standing on a product. Then go to Amazon and find reviews, the more pretentious or demanding, the better. Then copy and paste the review into a text to speech translator and design a voice that sounds like a bug. Couldn't find apples on Amazon at the time so I used the closest thing I could find.

 

[Alli]

Love the mantid reviews. You should keep working on that!

These are my tailless whip scorpions.

Gotta admit, they don’t do anything for me.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Love the mantid reviews. You should keep working on that!



Gotta admit, they don’t do anything for me.

With the Mantid Reviews I got preemptively overwhelmed thinking of the size appropriate products I would need with entertaining Amazon reviews. Also I spotted a shiny object out of the corner of my eye and moved on to that. I have many interests and it can be hard to focus on just one, especially with a pay the bills job with a decent commute time.

I look at tailless whip scorpions, or Taylor Swift scorpions as they are currently popularly called (nothing to do with her personally, just sounds the same when you say it), and think if a child was God or evolution and went "Let's combine a scorpion with a spider and crab" and that is what you would get, traits from all. They are neither a scorpion or a spider (or a crab). They are their own thing. That video was a good moment to catch as neither I or the (not) scorpion realized the other was hiding under the leaves. It got disturbed by the adapted front "whip" legs they use to feel around and corral prey. If you revisit towards the end of the video when they are both on the side of the bark you can see the top one rapidly vibrating those legs. I wonder if that is a form of communication as if to say "Sorry for disturbing you. I get it. Now back off."

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

 

[Alli]

Reminds me of an ostrich burying his head in the dirt.

 

[DT]

Oh yeah, I love jumping spiders, hahaha, their face, I like to give them a happy little smile!

 

[DT]

Why are iPhone photos suddenly showing up as HEIC?

View attachment 198View attachment 199
Anyhow - ain't he a beauty?

I think he's a __she__

 

[DT]

Ran into TWO baby black rat snakes/racers mowing yesterday, one was trying to end himself, I chased him away and he tried to get back under the mower. He must be sick of 2020 too ...

I'll take as many snakes (nonvenomous) as want to hang out in my yard.

 

[DT]

Sorry, had a post bombardment


My contribution to the Golden Silk Orb Weaver pics

 

[Eric]

Oh yeah, I love jumping spiders, hahaha, their face, I like to give them a happy little smile!

View attachment 305

Dude! First out loud laugh of the day.

 

[DT]

Dude! First out loud laugh of the day.

Hahaha, I love putting little smiley faces on critters and whatnot.

So, this won't be easy to explain, umm, so we got into whole groove with Mothman, you know, the urban legend, Gere film, where we'd voice him predicting the future, then he just started saying things, and we found this funny illustration I added the same mouth to, we'd print him out and stick him around the house (there's actually one in the wife's car, saying something about his preferred brand of kitchen appliance ...

OK, this is making less sense the more I type ...

... here ...

 

[DT]

"We're getting pizza on Saturday, I can see the future, I'm MOTHMAN!!"

 

[Gutwrench]

I saw a 🕷.

Nope; backing out of thread shivering.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Gotta admit, they don’t do anything for me.

Does this image of a tailless whip scorpion do anything for you?

I'm not going to ever play poker against you if you look at that and still go "Meh. I really don't have any feelings about that one way or another."

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I've had 5 of these. I'm taking a break from mantids while I care for my lizards and spiders but they truly are amazing insects and I would highly recommend them as pets if you are interested in insects.

 

[Alli]

Does this image of a tailless whip scorpion do anything for you?

I'm not going to ever play poker against you if you look at that and still go "Meh. I really don't have any feelings about that one way or another."

They just look like plastic toys.

I've had 5 of these. I'm taking a break from mantids while I care for my lizards and spiders but they truly are amazing insects and I would highly recommend them as pets if you are interested in insects.

Those are gorgeous!!

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

They just look like plastic toys.

How about this?



Apparently I really want you to be certain and invest in this.

 

[Alli]

Apparently I really want you to be certain and invest in this.

Ok, I’m sold. That video is adorable! Reminded me of a bodybuilder with really skinny arms.

Can they hurt you when they grab?