What animals in your area freak you out the most?

[lauren grier]

K and I were just discussing this as Connor just had a confrontation with a fisher cat in the backyard. (It was chasing a meow through the yard and connor for some reason got in the way and promptly ran screaming into the house).

While she lives in bear country.. She can see those guys.. I'm surrounded by evil little mean creatures that can SNEAK UP on you. Like fishers.. and possums.. I'm afraid of possums ok

We very rarely have the odd mountain lion or black bear here..but it's those little mean bitey guys that scare me.

[KristinCB]

Cougars (or mountain lions where you are) are what scare me the most.

So far I haven't had a confrontation with either.

I have had a confrontation with a moose and that scared me more than I thought it would lol!

[YepBrook]

Oh my goooosh... how do I choose?

I'd say sharks are my #1. Closely followed by alligators, sting rays, water snakes, Burmese pythons, and Florida panthers.

[lauren grier]

Well that's just cheating Brook.. You live in the australia of the USA as far as scary animals go

[flergs]

Massive hairy spiders that hide in the house. Ugh snakes & lizards that like to come in through our doggy door o.O But the worst are freakishly large tadpoles with legs that are nearly frogs! Especially when my kids throw them at me

[rach3975]

You all live in some scary places! Snakes are about the worst we have near here, though we also have a fox that hangs out in the neighborhood sometimes.

[carriesmom]

Coyotes, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, gila monsters, black widows, scorpions. There is probably more but that is what comes to mind right now.

[lauren grier]

foxes are cool not scary.. and this has nothing to do with that stupid song LOL. i love the red foxes we have here. they're so pretty.

[tanyiadeskins]

I have to say the Black Bears and rattlesnakes! :shudder:

[KristinCB]

I could NOT LIVE where there are snakes!! or scary spiders LOL!

[Tracyfish]

Originally Posted by YepBrook

Oh my goooosh... how do I choose?

I'd say sharks are my #1. Closely followed by alligators, sting rays, water snakes, Burmese pythons, and Florida panthers.

Yes this! Sharks are #1 for me too since I feel like I couldn't get away from those. We live on a lake so alligators are on the list, but I think I would be more worried about the water snakes since those are unpredictable and I feel like I could outrun a gator faster than a snake.

[NatalieKW]

I'd say snakes!

[catgoddess]

Seriously, Florida is the worst for critters. It's nasty. Why do people live here? gawd. I'm pretty sure bug species just spontaneously evolve down here. Different kinds of roaches and all sorts of nasty creepy crawly things. Blech.

[tanyiadeskins]

Originally Posted by Tracyfish

Yes this! Sharks are #1 for me too since I feel like I couldn't get away from those. We live on a lake so alligators are on the list, but I think I would be more worried about the water snakes since those are unpredictable and I feel like I could outrun a gator faster than a snake.

agree! Water Moccasins also scare the hell outta me, gators are actually ok

[MamaBee]

geez, I've now added states to my list of "do not live there"...

I live in the "city"... so nothing too scary, unless you count the neighbor who come out of his house in his underpants to get the newspaper... that is a pretty scare sight. haha... so I guess I'll go with voles... they aren't suppose to come into the house - but anything mouse related is ew... and any spiders - they don't have to be big - I just don't like anything crawly in the house.

[HeatherKate]

Nothing particularly scary in my neck of the woods (Chicago suburbs), but living in Phoenix was a totally different story! Rattlesnakes and scorpions...are you kidding me? We lived there for almost 5 years and I never saw either, thank GOD! I did find a brown recluse spider in my daughter's laundry hamper once, which scared be bejeezus out of me!

[mariewilcox]

We have lots of big creatures (moose, bear, mountain lions) and we also have timber wolves but they're rarely seen in "populated" areas. When we're at our camp we see moose a lot and the occasional bear but none of those really scare me.

Fishers are nasty critters - really nasty. We have them up here too and bobcats are fairly common and can be nasty. Badgers - hate those things.

[NeverendingJen]

coyotes

[SmallMoments]

Horses. I hate them. And we live in Amish country.

[pewtertm]

I'm not fond of the multitude of skunks who live near us and spray at things near our house during the night. Try waking up to that scent drifting in on a nightly basis. Yuck!

[nun69]

actually we have coyotes around here and they have eaten a couple of my cats (that we suspect) and I just don't like them....

[nesser1981]

Large, creepy birds! LOL! The snakes bothered me when I lived in Florida because I was afraid of dying. LOL! But Gators and Sharks never bothered me.

[nikkiARNGwife]

cottonmouths, rattle snakes, water moccasins, black widow and brown recluse spiders (these are my worst fear b/c they can be almost anywhere without knowing) We live in the woods so these are always things I teach the kids to look out for.

We also have panthers, coyotes, alligators and black bears but you don't come into contact with them unless you're in their environment so I guess I'm not really scared of them. Unless you know I end up in their environment..then yeah lol

[KyRainbow]

spiders. I hate them. We have brown recluse and black widows around here and they just terrify me. But even the non-poisonous ones freak me out. We have a massive one that's decided to live outside our house this fall. Keeps moving its web from one spot to another and it just gives me the shudders. (It's not a garden spider...those I don't mind so much because you can SEE their webs, lol)

[joelsgirl]

Cockroaches are the worst. I know they're not actually "animals" but dang those things FLY. And they BITE. And omgosh, i HATE them.

True story: when we packed up our bags to go home a few years ago (we live in SE Asia), we got out our suitcases and discovered they had turned into COCKROACH HOTELS. Seriously HUNDRED of cockroaches came running out of my suitcases. I was standing on the kitchen table screaming while my helper used a hand towel to swat at them and sprayed bug killer at the same time. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so traumatic.

Second on my list is monkeys. Nasty, stuff stealing, pee on you monkeys. Not cute at all.

[AmaG]

centipedes. I don't even kill spiders but centipedes must die.

[glumirk]

Ticks. I grew up in AZ and knew to just avoid rattlesnakes and scorpions, and we had pet tarantulas in grade school so I was ok with those. Ticks are just evil and scary. *shudder* they crawl where you won't see them and burrow in to eat you.

I also hate bed bugs with a passion. We had them when we first got married and it took months to get rid of them and I will probably have cancer from all of the bug poison we used.

[Traci Reed]

WTH is a fisher cat

[SeattleSheri]

I'm not a huge fan of bats or rats.

[lovely1m]

The only thing scary here isn't that scary really, as long as they stay outside, voles. Damn things. Our animals aren't too scary, we get the occasional moose or something bigger, but it's so rare, I wouldn't be scared of it.

[Lyd]

Originally Posted by MamaBee

geez, I've now added states to my list of "do not live there"...

I live in the "city"... so nothing too scary, unless you count the neighbor who come out of his house in his underpants to get the newspaper... that is a pretty scare sight. haha... so I guess I'll go with voles... they aren't suppose to come into the house - but anything mouse related is ew... and any spiders - they don't have to be big - I just don't like anything crawly in the house.

Ugh. Voles for me too. We had two get into our house a few years ago. I'm not usually an anxious person, but I was seriously disturbed until we caught them . . . and even for a little while afterward while I was still finding signs of them around the house. I just hate those things!!!

Since I live near the mountains there are lots of critters that I could be afraid of. But, we live far enough down into the valley that we don't get anything scary right around our home. Up there though, there are mountain lions, rattlesnakes, raccoons, and all sorts of other fun things. I did get to see a moose up close one time. Luckily, I was in a car and he was uninterested in us. But, man, was he HUGE! I would hate to be around one of those animals when it's mad!

[mariewilcox]

Originally Posted by Traci Reed

WTH is a fisher cat

I don't have time to properly link but here is a pic of the nasty critters - they are MEAN!!!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...d=0CLIBEP4dMA8

[anneofalamo]

backyard has coyotes, foxes, rattlers and scorpians...but I have a gun! lol

[flergs]

OMG you guys, everyone says Australia is scary but we don't have all this craziness! I'll stick with my spiders & snakes o.O

[carriesmom]

Originally Posted by Traci Reed

WTH is a fisher cat

I am glad someone asked this. Because I didn't and everyone blew past it and I was like WTH?

[d2vasquez]

we don't get many nasty things here but we have seen some coyotes roaming through our neighborhoods and that makes me uneasy....

[MandaT]

#1 - Mountain Lions, I've never had an encounter myself, but have had nightmares about them since I was a little girl. Even though I am afraid of running into one when we're out & about in the mountains, I actually hope that when (because it will happen someday) I do cross paths, I have my camera and awesome lens to get some portraits of the dang thing.

Snakes and Mice, they are tied at a close runner up... just nasty & creepy & crawly and gross.

I live in 'town' (which is technically on of the 9 incorporated cities in our county) with 1300 other people, and we get an occasional wild animal in town. A couple months ago there was a bear roaming the streets, I have a herd of deer that basically live in my backyard. When I was a kid (11-12ish) there were 2 Mt Lion cubs in a tree between our house & the neighbors, my little brother was 4 or 5 & walked right under them :/

[crecia27]

Armadillos! They are just gross!!

[Jenn Barrette]

Bears, wolves, and strangely...deer. When they have babies nearby they can be very aggressive here; attacking people and dogs.

[DawnMarch]

Rattlesnakes. Then coyotes (because they hunt and eat your pets!). We have mountain lions supposedly, but they are rarely seen.

We had an enormous black tarantula right at our front door the other night. I'm not really scared of tarantulas, but this thing was creepy!

[eranslow]

Well I think Iowa is pretty boring. We have deer and we probably have bears and snakes. But I get the most creeped out by spiders and other bugs. Especially if they are in my house. Ugh. Oh - and we also have raccoons - which I discovered when throwing away the garbage the first week we moved to our new house! That had me VERY surprised!!!

BTW - I had no idea what a fisher cat was - so thank you Traci for asking!

[Milmomma]

For me its the 1 ft wide furry tarantulas and the rattle snakes I'm not fond of. Okieland is full of scary things.

[MommaTrish]

Um... teenagers?
lol

Even though we live in the middle of a little city (like we just got made a city a few years ago, lol) so other than skunks and opossums we don't see much on the wild animal front. For real our biggest worry is local teens since we live right next to the high school. We've had those idiots speeding through and around our streets and our freaking yard. And they're loud. They make me feel like a crotchety old man.

[Keely~B]

Originally Posted by crecia27

Armadillos! They are just gross!!

oh my gosh, I think they're adorable ( well unless they're flat on the side of the road )

There are a lot of critters around here and a lot that are poisonous/dangerous but honestly the only things that ever freak me out are cockroaches. I also had a few mice once years ago and it took me a long time to recover from that, once they cross over into living quarters I. just. can't.....

[Shawna Clingerman]

Can I say spiders??? Those are the only animals I have regular contact with and I think they are the worst!! eep!

We don't really have a lot of poisonous ones, but living here in the suburbs thats probably the biggest threat in the animal department... or if it isn't I would really rather not know...

[Shawna Clingerman]

OH - possums!!! gah!!!

[Summer_Mom3]

snakes and scorpions! yuck!!

[Penny Springmann]

1. Roaches - CAN'T stand them...but we don't have them here like we did in FL with the palmetto bug - which is a fancy name for roach

2. Snakes - I can deal with king snakes...cause they eat the evil venomous snakes but we have a lot of cottonheads/cottonmouths

3. Deer - because they like to run out in front of my car - I've totaled one (car and deer) and hit another

[glumirk]

Speaking of this thread, my friends from my hometown had a fun visitor in their yard yesterday.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/photos-bear...prettyPhoto/0/

[Trista]

Squirrels. Yeesh! They are rats with furry tails. They really creep me out. Our rural community is full of them. They scavenge for seeds and nuts and destroy everything in their path. I cannot stand the sound of their claws prancing along the fence or on the roof. They jump from the fence to our house and it makes my skin crawl to think of one getting inside. EEP!