Redditor aconnor105 asked:
"What insect can go straight to Hell?"
Horseflies
"Horseflies. One of those f'kers chased my car for an hour and a half."
- an_ineffable_plan
"Ah yes, the sadistic combination of a mosquito's diet and gluttony and a fly's energy and speed."
- MadQrow
"Their mouthparts are literally two knives with the blades facing outwards, when a horsefly (or deer fly, or moose fly) bites you, they’re literally ripping a hole in your skin and lapping up the blood."
- MacTechG4
"They are such a**holes. A thrown shoe when they land is surprisingly effective at taking them out."
- AcceptablyPotato
"Deploy La Chancla!"
- classicalySarcastic
GiphyBed Bugs
"Bed bugs. If you're anything like me just the mention of them makes your skin crawl."
- My_Space_page
"The bites are bad but the paranoia is worse. Once you get them you will never trust a bed ever again."
"Every unexplained itch will make you think 'F'k, are they back?'."
- pk-starstorm
Giphy
Mosquitoes
"Mosquitoes. Every single one."
- Fish_Panda
"Only few select, totally expendable species of mosquitoes feed on humans. We need to just completely exterminate those f**kers!"
- vortex1001
"Kill em all, let their mosquito god sort em out."
- Digital_Utopia
GiphyJune Bugs
Vindicated! I'm not the only one who hates these things.
"June Bugs. I hate them so much. They fly right at you and are so loud! And I get embarrassed for screaming my a** off."
- Skeebou and Cupacakezzz
"1000% this. They make sitting outside in the summer in Texas after 8:00pm (when it’s actually cool enough to sit outside) completely unbearable."
- Rendogala
Cockroaches
"Cockroaches. I want to invent a laser to kill just these f'kers only. They all need to burn to ash."
- AlphaShard
"In South China we had drain cockroaches that would panic when they got caught in flash torrential rain. They make a beeline for the nearest high ground, which includes you."
"I didn't really believe it at first."
"'Hah, that cockroach looks like he's sprinting towards me. Look, he even changed direction with me. Whoa, hold on a minute mate'."
"He got to my upper chest before I managed to throw him off."
"About 2,000 of them panicked after a minor earthquake, flooding out of the drains and into the nearby shops. Yelps and colourful language followed as shop staff pelted them into the air and onto bikes/cars/pedestrians with brooms."
- mrminutehand
GiphyEarwigs
"Earwigs. Creepy a** bugs with those big a** pincers on their butt."
"And they always come out at night, get in water glasses, mailboxes...nasty things."
- Xonvoluted
Fleas
"Fleas. Literally any parasitic insect."
- Recent_View6254
"This is the answer, literally just any parasite. Some actually DO have a reason to exist, but others seem like they were created for the PURPOSE of spreading diseases and pain."
- StreetIndependence62
GiphyBorers
"The Emerald Ash Borer. Has killed three massive trees on my property, and is working its way to killing every ash tree in my part of the country."
- CoffeeAndBrass
leafless tree on green grass field under white skyPhoto by Arun Clarke on Unsplash
...but there seem to be a lot more we mostly hate.
Did your insect nemesis make the list?
Redditor EmperorOfDankness asked:
"If you had to hand over this planet to a different species of animal for them to rule over it, what would you choose?"
Feline Overlords
"House cats. They're taking over the world anyway. Might as well get on their good side while I can."
-HammockDistricOn5th
"Same. They are much more intelligent than we think."
-cute_floof
GiphyGood Bois
"Dogs, especially golden retrievers. They would call everyone 'hey buddy!' and the world would be peaceful again."
-sayhummus
"This is the correct answer, a dog ruled society would be a uptopia of love empathy and cuddles. There would also be a fair amount of normalized poo-eating, no vacuums, and almost certainly waaaaay too much public acceptance of deeeeep up close crotch sniffing, but it would be a small price to pay."
-HoratioReddacted
GiphyWorld's Largest—And Chillest—Rodents
"Capybara."
-quotidianwoe
"Capybaras. They get along with every animal."
-SmartAlec105
GiphyCorvid Kings
"Crows, I love their intelligence, plus they look cool. I’m genuinely hoping they wind up becoming the next intelligent species on earth."
-Not-Alpharious
"'Sorry boss, I'm going to be late for work this morning, there's a murder at the bus stop again.'"
-dusty-kat
GiphyDivision Of Labor
"I'd let octopuses rule the seas, elephants rule the land, and crows rule the skies."
-ruffsnap
"I argue we they should get full control of the planet."
"Birds are dumb as hell, don't let their nut dropping antics fool you. And like, do you really want to be ruled over by something big and threatening and thrice your size? Octopodes are small and squishy and very smart and already have an alliance formed with the squids for this precise contingency."
-Plethora_of_squids
GiphyEndangered Species
"I’d love to see the endangered or hunted species of a given area become the ruler of that specific place. So-nutria & gators in Louisiana, wolves & cattle in the Midwest, tigers & pangolins & sharks & antelope & rhinos & dogs & bears & fox & etc etc etc in China…ex like that. I like poetic justice."
-Sobadatsnazzynames
GiphyFormidable Formicidae
"Ants, if they could reach our level of intelligence in combination with their coordination could make a powerful civilization."
-sticky-man1229
"ANTS"
"The ant is one of the world's strongest creatures in relation to its size. A single ant can carry 50 times its own bodyweight, and they'll even work together to move bigger objects as a group! Ants carry leaves and twigs back to their nests!"
-PoeticThesaurus
Giphy
It's About Time
"Crocodiles. They've survived hundreds of millions of years. It should be their turn."
-DirtySingh
Giphy
Maybe we should give a few of these animals the chance to be in charge.
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The Itsy Bitsy....
GiphyI was 11ish and sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed in a basement. I woke up in the middle of the night with a spider half the size of a dinner plate on the ceiling just inches from my face. As I went to roll over to get out of the bed it dropped onto me and I nearly spontaneously combusted, my roll out of bed turned into a swan dive. I have arachnophobia to this day. spoonsthatbite
Boy Scout camp....
On A Boy Scout camp I broke a weird green sack with a stick. It turned out to be a spider egg, and the spiders went everywhere .The worst part is that nobody believed me and I was forced to sleep in that area. On top of that, we were on a wilderness survival camp so I didn't get a full tent, only a sleeping bag and a cover for the rain. I didn't get any sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about the spiders. Awesomesoldier06
nesting....
Killed probably 60 wasps in my basement the last month. Can't find nest. downtroddennotdead
Not to freak you out but you might want to check your walls. When it starts getting cold they will nest there. zigazigazah
Spit not Swallow...
It was dark, my partner and I were watching a movie. I wanted a snack. I went to the cupboard, grabbed an open packet of lamingtons. I sat back down and proceeded to eat one. My mouth felt kinda spicy, and the little coconut bits seemed to be moving.
I ran to the sink to spit it out while my partner turned the light on. ANTS, I accidentally ate a crap load of ants. BaggiraBaggy
Kill the Babies....
When I was a kid I was playing in one of those play house castles and climbed to the top only to be greeted by momma spider and her hundreds of babies. AustereTuba393
So i took a mattress......
We rented a house in the countryside when i was like 16. My bedroom was in the old basement, made out of rocks and all. It was crawling with scorpions, centipedes and other insects, and i have a phobia.
So i took a mattress, and slept for the 2 weeks in the living room next to the chimney.
However, one night i noticed that there was a buzzing sound coming from the chimney, so i took some insecticide and sprayed inside. Next thing i know, there was a hornets nest in there, and they all left it to fly in the living room as soon as i sprayed it. In the meantime there was a few scorpions in the room too. I spent the night under all my blankets, almost suffocating. Le_french_boi
The Widow....
My younger brother collects all sorts of bugs. One day we found a black widow on our front porch that seemed close to dying. My dad knows I am scared of bugs and for some reason we had the spider in a Tupperware container with the lid on. I have really thick hair and my mom had braided it the night before so it was really curly and poofy. My dad walked into the room with my little brother and threw a Tupperware container at me with the lid off.
I, thinking it had the spider in it, proceed to have my first panic attack. Imagine you have thick, curly hair, and you think there's a friggin' black widow in it. I blacked out but from what my mom told me, I was gasping for breath and heaving for a good few minutes. Turns out, he had throw an empty container at me. They were really apologetic but that feeling of pure terror and fear is something I will never forget. Anxious_Nobody
Covered....
I came home from work, walked in the front door fine, changed into shorts, went to leave the house not five minutes later, it was windy and hundreds of baby spiders were blowing past my front door as I walked out. I got covered in them. Dorkitron
The Cocoon....
When I was a kid, I found 2 cocoons. I put them in a jar and waited. Woke up one morning, covered in hundreds of baby praying mantises.
We were able to suck up most of them with a Dust Devil, empty them outside, and enjoyed watching them grow up outside the house. rafferty85
"Saving this little guy!"
GiphyAt work, in a hole dug out of the ground for a foundation.
Noticed there's about 40 other species stuck in this hole.
Start making ramps for them out of plywood and putting them in the corners of the hole.
Notice large spiders are also in the hole (I live in NJ, these were wolf spiders), probably eating other insects/small amphibians.
Most of the frogs escape after about 3 hours.
After lunch, I go in to make sure everything is alright down there.
I see a little frog stuck in the mud, struggling to get out.
I reach down to pick him us as my boss asks what I'm doing.
Look up at my boss, feel the frog on my hand, reach my hand in the air and say "Saving this little guy!" as I see the look of horror on my bosses' face.
I look at my hand.
There's a wolf spider the size of my palm crawling down my arm as fast as it can, with an eggsack.
Long story short, I scrambled all over the site for the next 10 minutes trying to make sure it was gone.
Never trying to save a frog again. jayswentz
That's the phrase buzzing around the internet since the first global scientific review of insect population decline was published this week in the journal Biological Conservation.
Insects are superlative and have a crucial role in food webs and ecosystems. But they're dying out quite fast.
According to the study's authors:
"The pace of modern insect extinctions surpasses that of vertebrates by a large margin.
We estimate the current proportion of insect species in decline ... to be twice as high as that of vertebrates, and the pace of local species extinction ... eight times higher. It is evident that we are witnessing the largest [insect] extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods."
Overall, 40 percent of insect species on the planet are declining. Another third are considered endangered. The review's authors concluded that the total mass of insects worldwide is declining by 2.5 percent annually.
The numbers in this insect apocalypse metastudy are nightmarish: - Total mass of insects falling by 2.5% *a year*… https://t.co/rGBHrDEkSp— Alice Ross (@Alice Ross) 1549886150.0
"It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none," study co-author Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, an environmental biologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, told The Guardian. "If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet's ecosystems and for the survival of mankind."
Habitat loss is largely responsible for the decline in insect populations. Pesticides, climate change, and invasive species all play a significant role in hastening the decline, too.
"Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades," the review's co-authors wrote. "The repercussions this will have for the planet's ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least."
Fairly strong words for a scientific paper, & it all comes down to what we eat... “Unless we change our ways of pro… https://t.co/s4eH4sLJrL— Louise Gray (@Louise Gray) 1549880247.0
The researchers note:
The repercussions this will have for the planet's ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least, as insects are at the structural and functional base of many of the world's ecosystems since their rise at the end of the Devonian period, almost 400 million years ago.
People responded with alarm:
This collapse of insect numbers is another sign that our planet is in crisis and we need urgent action to protect n… https://t.co/B7VXdIHP9A— WWF Cymru (@WWF Cymru) 1549884382.0
Crazy to think “Earth’s bugs outweigh humans 17 times over and are such a fundamental foundation of the food chain.… https://t.co/yr2DgDKEN1— Mustafa Suleyman (@Mustafa Suleyman) 1547743736.0
This headline alone is the gravest I have read in years... Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature' https://t.co/r8CkVcaxrJ— Sebastian Roché (@Sebastian Roché) 1549885213.0
The study is imperfect, however. Scientists do not know how many species of insect exist and lack adequate population data for all of them. Much of the data also comes from "developed" countries like the United States and those in Europe. The study lacks information from tropical regions, which are areas where new species of insect keep being discovered.
As a result, people like scientist and researcher Christian Schwägerl responded with skepticism.
I've written about insect populations and their decline for many years, trying to improve knowledge and raise aware… https://t.co/OEDid8TFGu— Christian Schwägerl (@Christian Schwägerl) 1549873842.0
(1) Despite widespread, worrying declines in many parts of world, total insect diversity/abundance are far from kno… https://t.co/xDIkPBDhA4— Christian Schwägerl (@Christian Schwägerl) 1549873842.0
For context, I was one of first journalists to cover Krefeld study in Germany, in @FAZ_Wissen, then @YaleE360… https://t.co/iK28dJ033X— Christian Schwägerl (@Christian Schwägerl) 1549901736.0
The Guardian, the first publication to report the news, later posted a grave warning from its editorial board that serves as an indictment against what they refer to as "unchecked human greed":
The chief driver of this catastrophe is unchecked human greed. For all our individual and even collective cleverness, we behave as a species with as little foresight as a colony of nematode worms that will consume everything it can reach until all is gone and it dies off naturally. The challenge of behaving more intelligently than creatures that have no brain at all will not be easy. But unlike the nematodes, we know what to do. The UN convention on biodiversity was signed in 1992, alongside the convention on climate change. Giving it the strength to curb our appetites is now urgent. Biodiversity is not an optional extra. It is the web that holds all life, including human life.
The clock is ticking.