r/whatisit • • 9h ago

New, what is it? What is this thing.

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u/overdramaticpan 8h ago edited 3h 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)

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u/sarabridge78 8h ago

Do you know what exact species it is? I tried to look it up but there are 35,000 species in the cerambycidae family.

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u/overdramaticpan 8h ago

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)

it's definitely in the Batocera genus though

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u/Financial_Luck_6906 7h ago

I’m reading all about them now (Batocera). Fascinating. I’m 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 it’s 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).

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u/overdramaticpan 7h ago

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)

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u/crashlanding87 3h ago

Has anyone welcomed over to r/wormington yet? You might like it there.

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u/iamSwampLord 7h ago

Well this much is obvious to all of us here. Thanks for nothing /s

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u/ICEtoAshes 7h ago

Check out the Sabre tooth longhorn. I follow a yt channel that keeps those guys as pets.