Alright....now I haven't heard any testimonials about this particular critter....and I'm real curious if anyone knows what I'm talking about. As a child in South Texas....we use to see these caterpillars that we called "asps" crawling around on the metal fence and around the hackberry trees. They looked like crawling blonde toupees...lol.....or (now picture this) a crawling blonde mullet, lol I don't know how else to describe them! lol..... We knew they could pack a wallop in a sting...so we didn't mess with them AT ALL.
Well, my best pal and I had built a pretty cool fort made of leftover wood that had a door and a chair inside, lol... I sat down on our little chair...and whaaammm....* Liquid fire hit the back of my leg...and I remember running to the kitchen, screamin' my head off! My mom got me down on the floor while I thrashed about....and got the old baking soda/water combo going on the spot. To this day, I have no idea what those caterpillars were really called...and haven't seen any in years either. They were blonde...but I would see a brown one every now and then too.... :o
Where are all the wasps this year?
lmbo TxT . . . I know just the ones . . . seen many but never been nailed by one. But yeah that's what I've always heard them called - ASP. Not sure how many colors they come in, but I've seen several versions of browns, tans, blondes and even light gray. Most with darker undertones - almost like a bleach blonde . . . lol
I never knew anyone that actually got stung by one, but as kids we were warned they were really bad, so like you, we never messed with them . . . much anyway. I have to admit I'd get a stick and check them out, but never with my hands . . . lol
Well count me in! I didn't have the priviledge of growing up around these buggers and had no clue. I was mowing and brushed limb with my leg. Instant fire! We were building a house at the time and I asked one of the guys what that might be. We went and looked and saw this punk looking caterpillar and he knew instantly. They are wicked devils but you know, that was the first and thankfully the last one... that was in '88. I loved your desciption TxT. : ))
I have been stung by an asp too, while triming a live oak, and boy they do hurt, I never even saw it before the sting.
I live in the Austin hill country where scorpions abound. One day I emptied the dryer into the plastic basket and placed it under my arm, with it resting on my hip to carry it to the bedroom for folding. As I was walking in the hall, I felt a stinging right at my waist. WHOA....bitten right in a tender area.
BUT the "best" scorpion sting story is my ex. He put on a pair of pants one morning and was bitten...well, to use his words..."Within an inch of life or death!" :P
Ouch Pod & Frosty . . . they don't make ya sick or anything do they?
lol Connie - I can appreciate that for sure . . . I put on a t-shirt straight out of my closet one time and got nailed right on the nipple :O (can I say that on here?)
When we were teens . . . I lived out on the river and there were more scops than ants & flys in that house most of the time . . . we'd scoop them up with a dust pan and toss them into an old (empty) aquarium I had with some gravel still in the bottom of it . . . wasn't long and we had about 20 of them in there . . . not sure if I should tell the Tequila party story part of this . . . lol
But they were pretty interesting to watch . . . wish I would have taken pics back then.
Too funny GD,this last week my six year old asked me if nipple was a bad word. It took a few minutes to gain my composure. I told told him it was o.k. If he needed to tell the Doctor if his nipples hurt. Other than that, it was like having a butt...we all know you have one, just don't go around announcing it. Of course his reply was a giggling "o.k. Mama"
This the same child I happen to be pregnant with the only time I've been stung by an Asp. It fell out of a tree, into my collar and WHAM right on the neck. Ugly buggers!
lol Cocoa . . . too cute.
Dang . . . how 'bout that luck huh? Of all the places for an asp to land . . . not good!
I live in the woods and I figure they were all here way before me. We are having absolutely NO shortage of wasps, hornets or bees here, or scorpions for that matter. I've been stung quite a few times by all the above. One time, a long story shortened, I was stung on the hand by a scorp., knocked it off, couldn't find it to kill it, went back into the kitchen where I was gonna torture a scorp in the sink, when I discovered where the other scorp had gone...up my blue jeans! It stung me 3 times on its way up my leg before I was able to get my pants off...then I had to turn them inside out to find THAT scorp and kill it. Needless to say, I just killed the scorp in the sink (forgo the torture). My oldest daughter saw my jeans inside out on the floor of the kitchen w/ me in the bathroom putting wet tobacco on the stings...she actually wondered what had happened, after all these yrs out here!
Wet tobacco put on any of those stings will stop the pain almost instantly!! If you don't smoke, "borrow" a cigarette from someone who does & keep it in the freezer till needed. Use a bandaid to keep the tobacco in place. This is coming from an "expert"!!
lmbo @ Gd.. ...I was wondering...CAN you say that on here? lol....
Well goodness, I guess I wasn't imagining those walking blonde mullets then...lol...I'd never heard anyone else talk about them....and I sort of forgot about them...until we started talking about stings and such. lol GD...a tequila party eh? Is that like a mescal worm? :D lol. We use to poke those asps with sticks too....what in the world were we thinking? lol
Now as some of you know, I'm part of the management staff at a Goodwill store here in SA....and although I was off that day, my other managers told me that a customer had tried on a pair of pants in the dressing room and got nailed real bad by a scorpion inside of the pants. :o Yikes, poor guy.....
They seem to be everywhere around the house...and like I said much earlier somewhere, actually found one that had died trying to get out of our electric socket in the master bedroom. I can't get the little guy out and you can still see his wee pinchers hanging out of the socket..lol....Gives my Mom the willies...lol
While watering pot plants this morning, look what I found on the side of a spider plant...
wwwwwoooooww....is that a dirt dauber nest, podster??
TxT ~ do you treat your home for scorpions? If so, what do you use?
Yeah I think that is a dirt dauber/dobber nest. I don't feel threatened by them. I, too, have broke up their housekeeping and not been stung. They fill these tubes with their larvae and usually live spiders which provide food for the nursery.
Not really, podster....I hate poisons...tho I'll use it for that dadburn scale that keeps attacking one of my cactus. If I see scorpions around the house or outside, I just tend to relocate them in an old aluminum water glass....lol Crazy, I know...but I just find em' interesting.. :)
lol...I had a set of chimes that were extra sentimental to me since my Mom sent them to me while I lived in the Boston area. I was homesick something awful..and she sent them to me to cheer me up.. Well, last Fall, I noticed that I wasn't hearing that familiar chingy changy noise that they made....but more of a thunk thunk, lol.....so I took them down...and daang....all of the tubes were plugged up with leaves and mud...! lol....I had to clear the tubes since I figured it was cold and the little critter who made them was now gone. And I was right...but all sorts of weird little things fell out of those tubes... :p
I was speaking to my mother on the cell phone tonight and we started reminiscing about that dadburn asp that I sat on as a child, lol. Well, of course she remembered the occasion...and had the silly audacity to ask if I had actually put one of those crawlin' toupees on a lizard head once....like a little wig, lol..."I certainly did not!" I replied! All I did once was put a bb in a toad's mouth to see what it would do....lol.. But a toupee on a lizard? That little lizard would have taken off like white on rye! lol... :D
lmbo @ TxT's mom . . . evidently she knows you pretty well huh :D :D :D
*sigh* I'm afraid she does... :D.....I was a walkin' natural resource and learnin' center for the family, lol... :)
lol yeah . . . I can imagine ya were . . . bet they were like . . . .Let's get Txxxxie . . . she'll try ANYTHING!!! :D
lolol @ Txxxxie......It was more like, "She'll PICK UP Anything!"
Dang, its late! My cold meds are kickin' in.....lol...
lol yeah . . . ya better go kick that cold in the tail before it does that to you :P
ok it has been determined that all the wasps came to my house to live. Working in the yard two different friends got stung yesterday.. one got stung twice... (must be something about her they like cuz I walk that path all the time and have never been stung).
lol Nada, I know that I keep finding them all over the crown of thorns...and I've come so near to brushing up against them when I'm watering my plants...It must be the heat. They're buzzing around my hummer feeders too...and actually chase the hummers away sometimes...! Tho sometimes its the hummers doin' the chasing...lol
I think it is the lack of water... I spilled water on the driveway yesterday when I was watering some new plants (I water from my water barrels for you people that know I'm not allowed to water on sat!). The butterflies just swarmed to the water... I'm going to do it on purpose to day for them.
lol, yeah....those snout buttlerflies are really on the march right now! Clouds of em' out here.....enough to settle on your head and give ya a new hairdo...lol I heard that its a good time to pour your old hummer feeder water in a shallow pie pan and let the butterflies have a sip....
had not thought of that.. will have to try it. and get a pic! *giggle You people have made me have to take the camera with me every time I go outside... I'm afraid now I will miss something and not have the camea.
lmbo yeah . . . I'm with ya there Nada . . . I'm gonna have to get a smaller camera or bigger pockets :P
lol.....I try to keep mine near the back door.... *just in case*
I'm curious to know what the kind of butterflies are puddling. Red Admirals? I have a lot of different things that I call "bees" but I know some are wasps too. Bumble bees are the only ones I really know are for sure bees. Oh, I need to visit the new BugFiles to try and ID some of mine!
I have a few red wasps but they aren't near as mean this year. They do hunt my butterfly caterpillars, mainly on my passionvine, and they get annoyed at me when I'm over there too long but they haven't charged at me this year. They used to tho and I thought maybe it was just me but then learned they do that. I think they get used to me. I know the Bumble bees do. I just work in and out and around them all and I've never been stung. I do have to yell "go away!" to them some so that might be why. You do think they understand me, right?
I haven't seen yellow jackets tho. I'll have to go check the sides of the house where they usually make nests and see. I do have mud dobbers and some shiny blue/black wasp looking things.
Crowellli, do you think you could have actually seen a Clearwing Hummingbird moth? They are larger than bumble bees and look like hummers. Did it look like this?
Ahh nice Butterfly Bush KK . . . is that a "Twilight" or a Royal Red maybe? I just added both to my garden recently, but the Twilights are still very small and just started to bloom.
Great photo . . . I haven't seen a wasp like that around here. Oh and as far as bees - vs - wasps. To me . . . Honey Bees and Bumble Bees are what I call bees . . . wasps are more slim-line and usually have more pointy features. But I'm far from an expert, so that's just what I know them as ;)
GD It was late, you were tired... think that was supposed to be a hummingbird moth? Or maybe you were being facetious?
KKBlond ~ "haven't seen yellow jackets tho. I'll have to go check the sides of the house where they usually make nests and see" I do hope you are looking in the ground. Mostly the residence of choice for YJS.
KKBlond, that is a wonderful photo. I'm not that good with a camera. I finally figured out that every time I took a photo part of it looked blurry or foggy, it's because when I go from the very cool air conditioned house, to the humid hot outside, the lens fogs up. Duh, you'd think I'd have thought of that about a hundred shots ago! I'm sure my critter wasn't a moth. I really thought it was one of those ferocious Japanese hornets, but finally bound the bug site that said it was the only true hornet in the U.S. and is often mistaked for the Japanese. It's called the Giant Hornet and you can see a great pic of it here... it's the last pic on this page. I've now seen them several times around here and I know it scared the beejusus outta me!
http://www.vespa-crabro.de/hornets.htm
Yes GD, that is a Royal Red bush. It is doing very well this year which makes me and all the bfly's happy!
LOL Podster, I thought maybe I posted something wrong. GD, if the hummingbird moth is new to you then you are in for a treat! Here's a pic of it further away. You gotta know what you're looking at!
Like I said, I have things that are lumped into on category of "bees". lol You know how we Texans lump every soda in the "coke" category! think that's what we have always done with these yellow and black wasps that build their nests UP off the ground.
Everyone I know has always called them Yellow Jackets and even the wasp catchers call them that but I do think that true YJ make their nests in the ground. Thank God I have never had those because I hear they are Mean!
So podster, please help me and educate me as to what I might really have! Really! Or you could send me to the BugFiles but I could be there forever. :)
Crowellli, guess you aren't going to be one of those people letting them SIT ON THEIR FACE?!
lol Pod . . . so right you are . . . it was probably too llate for me to be type'n on here :)) I even read the hummingbird moth part . . . but I think the sun got to my hummingbird size brain while shred'n the fields yesterday . . . lol
KKBlond, I don't mind most of the bugs in the garden> I have a kinda' "live and let live" attitude, but I've been popped by stinging bugs so many times that I tend to give them a wide berth. I figure there's a reason for all of them, but there are a few I wouldn't mind seeing permanently disappear like aphids, fireants and lacewings! But, definitely, none of 'em will be stiin' on my face!
This message was edited Jul 31, 2006 7:50 AM
I'm with you on all 3 of those! Oh wait, not lacewings, they are good. You mean Lace bugs? Now those things are probably the worst pest I have and are so hard to get rid of. I wish I could find a natural enemy of theirs!
I did a quick Google search and read that there are aerial-nesting Yellow Jackets but the ones we call YJ could also be paper wasps. If I have a nest I'll get a pic.
lol Crow . . . thanks for the link . . . those are new to me too.
KKB - Ahh ok . . . very nice. No I've never had the pleasure of seeing a hummingbird moth . . . maybe my butterfly bushes will attract me some too :)
Speaking of . . . I recently put my Royal Red (and 2 tiny baby Twilight Butterfly Bushes) out in a new garden getting full sun. It was doing great until about 5-6 days ago. It started getting yellow leaves on the lower parts of the plant. It's still blooming fine and putting out new growth along the branches, so I'm not sure what's wrong with it? Maybe too much water? I mulched the bed real good and since it's been so hot down here and the plants in the bed were all new, I was watering every day. When I noticed the yellow leaves I backed off watering these. I hope it recovers. Ideas anyone?
Here's a photo - if that will help?
KKBlond, you're right it's lace bugs not lacewings. I found the info on that culprit on another site while trying to figure out what was wrong with my lantana. There are pictures of it at
http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/aimg44.html
It's similar to the lace bug that's been destroying azaleas for the past few years here in Houston. Thanks for helping set the record straight before we tried to kill benefical insects!