Well, they are easier to spot and less likely to do a full on home infestation than German cockroaches, so there’s that. They are pretty nasty though, especially their guts.
Please also consider the deer fly. 1/3 the size of horseflies, and maybe only half as painful, but ten times more aggressive. Certainly there’s also no reason to overlook the mosquito game in a swamp state. There’s the usual North American black widows and brown recluses, and while generally harmless, there is something deeply primeval about walking into a three-foot-wide spiral web with a 5-inch leg-span orb weaver in the middle of it.
Vertebrate-wise, there are the aforementioned alligators, and way down south a saltwater croc occasionally turns up; then there are the alligator snapping turtles around as well. The Florida panther is endangered to the point of near extinction, but it does exist. There are also black bears and coyotes. The Eastern diamondbacks and water moccasins are to be avoided, and remember your rhymes to tell the coral snakes from the king snakes. The pythons and monkeys are invasive species and limited in range, but always be ready if in the woods or the swamp. Oh, right, I was more of a freshwater Floridian, but there are also the sharks and barracudas.
Beyond hungry fish, the ocean also has jellyfish, red tide, and rip currents, and of course that’s where the hurricanes come from, LOL.
More seriously, while little of this has an impact on everyday life, growing up in a climate and environment like that does affect your outlook on what’s dangerous and what’s tolerable. I’m a pretty typical nerd type, but my wife still gets “Florida man” triggered every once in a while by behavior or attitudes that feel completely normal to me.
While the orb weavers and Argiope spiders are certainly a shock, it’s really the Brown Huntsman spiders (American version of the classic Clock Spider) that can instill that fight or flight response when they run at’chya. I love spiders to death and always enjoy saving them from my house, but the first time I saw one of those guys in my apartment, my legs absolutely turned to jello.
there is something deeply primeval about walking into a three-foot-wide spiral web with a 5-inch leg-span orb weaver in the middle of it.
We have invasive Joro spiders in my neck of Appalachia; it is deeply unpleasant to walk through one of their webs, and they like to span them right across hiking trails. When the light is just right, you can see thousands of their webs spanning telephone wires.
There is one big reason I will never live in Florida beyond everything. Even Ron DeSantis.
That reason is palmetto bugs.
Giant flying cockroaches? Why the fuck does anyone live where they exist?
Well, they are easier to spot and less likely to do a full on home infestation than German cockroaches, so there’s that. They are pretty nasty though, especially their guts.
Please also consider the deer fly. 1/3 the size of horseflies, and maybe only half as painful, but ten times more aggressive. Certainly there’s also no reason to overlook the mosquito game in a swamp state. There’s the usual North American black widows and brown recluses, and while generally harmless, there is something deeply primeval about walking into a three-foot-wide spiral web with a 5-inch leg-span orb weaver in the middle of it.
Vertebrate-wise, there are the aforementioned alligators, and way down south a saltwater croc occasionally turns up; then there are the alligator snapping turtles around as well. The Florida panther is endangered to the point of near extinction, but it does exist. There are also black bears and coyotes. The Eastern diamondbacks and water moccasins are to be avoided, and remember your rhymes to tell the coral snakes from the king snakes. The pythons and monkeys are invasive species and limited in range, but always be ready if in the woods or the swamp. Oh, right, I was more of a freshwater Floridian, but there are also the sharks and barracudas.
Beyond hungry fish, the ocean also has jellyfish, red tide, and rip currents, and of course that’s where the hurricanes come from, LOL.
More seriously, while little of this has an impact on everyday life, growing up in a climate and environment like that does affect your outlook on what’s dangerous and what’s tolerable. I’m a pretty typical nerd type, but my wife still gets “Florida man” triggered every once in a while by behavior or attitudes that feel completely normal to me.
While the orb weavers and Argiope spiders are certainly a shock, it’s really the Brown Huntsman spiders (American version of the classic Clock Spider) that can instill that fight or flight response when they run at’chya. I love spiders to death and always enjoy saving them from my house, but the first time I saw one of those guys in my apartment, my legs absolutely turned to jello.
I’d almost forgotten about nosleep
LOL. Scarier when they’re all lumped into one comment, I reckon. Mostly it’s the fire ants and DeSantis voters you have to worry about.
We have invasive Joro spiders in my neck of Appalachia; it is deeply unpleasant to walk through one of their webs, and they like to span them right across hiking trails. When the light is just right, you can see thousands of their webs spanning telephone wires.
The kudzu of spiders.
You’re not wrong. They’re displacing native orb weavers by strongly out-competing them.
We also have bamboo, which is a lot like kudzu, only it grows slightly slower.