longhorn beetle! while they look like they were born from hell's pyres, their bites aren't bad at all; it can break the skin, like a crab pinching you, but just put a bandaid on it and you'll be fine if bitten
IMPORTANT EDIT: while largely harmless to humans, many longhorn beetle species are invasive in much of the US; the asian longhorn beetle can kill trees and produce falling branch hazards in forested or rural areas (information courtesy of u/BantedHam, corroborated by the USDA)
If he arranges them right, he might get more dates from. chicks and more respect from dudes, you know, like John Travolta did in Grease? (please please please donāt let him say that he wasnāt born yet!)
someone else commented that it's the mango-stem borer, Batocera Rufomaculata (the commenter saying Batocera Parryi is also plausible though, it's hard to tell since i'm unused to identifying most beetles)
Iām reading all about them now (Batocera). Fascinating. Iām trying to get over my aversion to bugs by following bug pages/subs (I like one on FB that has Kevin in the page name, I hate FB but itās the reason I go - mostly spiders though, and now I love them). The more I learn the less I fear (kinda, from my house in urban NV where we have very few bugs, safely looking at these earth aliens on a screen lol).
same here! i used to hate spiders, yet now find them quite interesting; the more you know, the less they're frightening in my experience
i enjoy seeing pictures of spiders here or on other subs, then doing my best to identify them (i don't, however, enjoy the reaction-images people post about these little guys)
In fairness, looks like the fellow might have found his way indoors judging by the background, difficult to say if it's indoors or some sort of patio, but what I'm trying to get at is picking it up and taking a quick video before returning it to the outdoors might have been the merciful option here.
Congratulations to you both on being kind and polite people! I was preparing to read through yet another thread of "you're an idiot because MLEH" / "you can't even read because if you COULD you'd know I was saying SPLEH!"
You've both restored my faith in anonymous humans on the internet. What tattered little of it remains, anyways...
lol well read no further. Because Iām currently arguing quite meanly further down below with people claiming that bugs canāt fear or donāt fear or that we should care or blah blah blah.
Well that's a absolute rarity, someone bein able to own it when you get called out instead of sounding/looking stupid trying to save face . . Good for you !!!
We are pretty chill here, but please try to keep things reasonably civil on this sub. No slurs, name calling or harassment and trolling.
Please follow: Reddiquette at all times.
Additionally, Reddit's Rules.
Yes, the internet makes us angry too sometimes, especially this particular comment.
I'll also add that things with this kind of coloration are often very dangerous. They're marked with colors like this to keep predators away. Sometimes those markings are just deception, but unless you know that's the case, you don't want to find out the hard way.
I have been pinched and Iām sure there are varying degrees of pinch pain depending on pinch location
For me, it was disproportionately painful. It was actually a hermit crab sitting in the palm of my hand and it was like a tiny ninja that actually knew where to specifically pinch to inflict the most pain. It really didnāt make any sense but it was so bad lol
In Illinois we got a smaller version of the longhorn beetle.
One night, I was asleep and was shocked awake by the jolt of pain. As I thrashed out of sleep I heard buzzing and wings hitting my wall. I have a weird fear of wasps and the house I lived in at the time would get swarmed by those, so I figured it was one of those assholes and mustered up the courage to get out of bed and get to swinging once the light was on.
I turned the light on, and it was a Longhorn beetle on my wall. I felt a lot of relief. And then I smashed it so hard with a shoe it left a stain on the wall.
I had a German shepherd at the time too and he was looking around to see what got me all worked up at 2am lol.
Aren't bad?! I got bit by Pine Sawyers (bark beetles, as we called them) as a kid and those things hurt so bad. This giant thing looks like it could clean its teeth with one. š
Itās not the pain of the bite thatās the traumatic part. Itās seeing whatās biting you and always having that image in your head.
Idk why but insects biting me strikes fear in me in a way that mammals who have bitten me, just donāt even come close to.
I was bite in the face by an Akita when I was 9 at my very first sleepover after trying to play/wrestle with it while I still had food in my mouth from the dinner that I had eaten in a very big hurry so that I could go play with the dog, and ended up in the ER with 8 stitches.
I canāt tell you how little that affected how I felt about dogs. I went right back to my house later that night and started playing with my own 100+lb dog.
But insects that have bitten me? FUCK THAT. Especially if I have to witness it happen.
yup! most longhorn beetles aren't this frightening however; while their matte compound eyes can be intimidating, most have smaller mouthparts than this genus
i recommend reading up on them on wikipedia; it's not too accurate, but it'll give you the vague gist of what's in-store when it comes to these little guys, whom i find to be quite cute myself
dogs can deliberate how much bite force to use, while insects can't; it really doesn't take much to break our skin, which is somewhat thin relative to that of other primates (don't quote me on that last part though)
even insects as small as ladybugs can break the skin
not for most at least, they're often compared to crab pinches and i know someone who's been pinched by a crab; it wasn't bad at all for them, and other anecdotes i've heard about crabs are similar, so there's reason to assume longhorn beetle bites aren't horrible either
Well Iāve actually never been pinched by a crab so Iām not too sure how that feels BUT Iām deathly afraid of anything that pinches, bites, stings, etc.. Iāll sling it on accident š„²
I have no fucking idea why everyone is saying they are harmless. If you find one in its native environment maybe, if OP is in the US this needs to be contained and reported, and Mango Longhorns aren't invasive yet, but their cousins, the Asian Longhon has killed millions of pines across the Rockies, and is horribly invasive. If you find one in the US that looks like that but has white spots, fucking kill it, kill every single one you find.
Normally Iām all for defending little non-poisonous bugs as giving little no big deal bites but this is the poster child/bug for turning into something horrific if bitten. Just knowing it exists has changed my world view solely on the knowledge I never want to see one of these in person.
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u/overdramaticpan 6h ago edited 1h ago
longhorn beetle! while they look like they were born from hell's pyres, their bites aren't bad at all; it can break the skin, like a crab pinching you, but just put a bandaid on it and you'll be fine if bitten
IMPORTANT EDIT: while largely harmless to humans, many longhorn beetle species are invasive in much of the US; the asian longhorn beetle can kill trees and produce falling branch hazards in forested or rural areas (information courtesy of u/BantedHam, corroborated by the USDA)