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Whip Scorpion aka
Vinegaroons are
harmless, live
primarily
underground and
come out at night or
when it rains. They
like to hide inside
your shoes left
outside, so look
inside them before
slipping your feet in.
Brown Recluse are
plentiful in the
southwest. Shake out
clothing, blankets, etc
left on the floor or
ground before using
them to insure spiders
have not crawled in
them.
These are not
aggressive, but their
hemotoxin bite can
lead to necrosis (kills
skin tissue).
Black Widow
spiders are
aggressive
and will bite
if provoked.
If you find
any, let us
know, we’ll
gladly rid
the park of
them.
Called the Bark
Scorpion, these are
rarely seen out
during the day.
Flipping over rocks,
buried objects may
expose them and of
course being
nocturnal, they will
come out to feed at
night. Their sting is
one of the most
venomous in North
America can be
quite dangerous to
humans.
The banded desert centipede can inflict an
intensely painful, though rarely (if ever)
fatal, bite, or more accurately, a pinch.
They puncture your skin with a powerful
pair of modified, hollow, clawed legs
located on the first body segment,
immediately behind the head. They use the
legs and claws like hypodemic syringes to
draw venom from poison sacks within the
body trunk and inject it into your flesh.
Additionally you might also experience
small puncture wounds, laced with blister-
causing venom, in the tracks where the
clawed centipede crawled across your skin.
So it’s probably best to leave these
meandering critters alone!
Typically, in the southwestern
United States, tarantulas live in
solitude in desert basins,
mountain foothills and forested
slopes. They occupy various
kinds of nests, with many
species taking up residence in
burrows or crevices, which may
be sequestered in the ground,
along cliff faces, among rocks,
under tree bark, or between
tree roots.
They can bite if provoked, but
are not venomous to humans
and are sold as pets! ewww!
how cool!!
The Tarantula Hawk... Body lengths
measures up to two inches, and the
wasps are rather robust, which
provides good protection during
encounters with tarantulas. The
insects are metallic blue-black with
wings that are blue-black, orangish or
mahogany in color. This is another
group of insects which, like velvet
ants, have aposematic coloring – that
is, conspicuous warning coloring –
which warns potential predators that
this is a meal that might be more
painful that it is worth.
Tarantula hawk stings are considered
to be the most painful of any North
American insect. One researcher
described the tarantula hawk’s sting
this way: "To me, the pain is like an
electric wand that hits you, inducing
an immediate, excruciating pain that
simply shuts down one’s ability to do
anything, except, perhaps, scream.
Mental discipline simply does not work
in these situations.
It is not lethal, but worth avoiding!
Harmless Wind Scorpion aka Sun
Spider aka Camel Spider. No they do
not chase you, they want the shade
you make... Yes they can bite if
provoked, but have no venom at all.
Bugs of the Southwest