We don't normally see these little critters until late April. This is the 3rd one I've had so far this year, the other two were a couple weeks ago. In 8 years living in this house, I've only had a total of 6; 5 of them have been since last summer. The first was within the first month of living here, and even then I wasn't sure it was from the house, it was dead, and earlier that afternoon I was working at a house that was infested with them. My dog found this one crawling across the kitchen floor (I had the patio door open because even at 7:40 pm, it's in the mid 60's). Anyway, it's already that time of year where I am afraid to walk around barefoot in the house, lol! Luckily they fluoresce quite nicely.

Makes life more interesting having those little critters around

We don't get a lot of scorpions here , but we do have to content with this guy every now and then, happens so rarely nothing to really be worried about, snakes on the other hand is big issue here, cobras, rinkhals, puff adder, tree snakes, you may have the rattle snake, but our puff adder would eat a rattle snake for breakfast. If a puff adder bites you here, you look for a tree with shade, you won't start smelling right away

Australia might have all the stuff that wants to eat you kill and eat you, Africa has all the stuff that wants to kill you just for fun, regardless of it being able to it eat you or not.

Regardless here you check your shoes before putting them on, irrespective of season, period. I think the UK is about the luckiest country in the world.

@wiz: How about Hippo's, get any of them where you are? (apparently the biggest threat to humans on the planet!)

Cows can be pretty nasty, especially around calving time.

I have a house full of exotic animals from all over the world, they are all in vivs though plus they are mostly handleable, just avoid the bitey end.

Hippos and crocodiles are isolated to east to west following rivers only can't remember which, so they aren't wide spread either, one river that contains hippos also happens to form our country border with Zimbabwe, so a lot of illegal immigrants try to cross the river and end up being chomped in half.

Hippos are herbivores so they don't eat you, just fiercely territorial, you more likely to be killed by a cat here then a hippo. . Elephants, lions, leopards, cheeta's, and such are all isolated to national parks, no danger there. Just snakes, spiders and scorpions you have to concern your self with, but this really is only in rural areas like were I find my self, most been wiped out in the large cities, with maybe the exception of spiders and scorpions.

I would take my chances with a hippo then an entire field of puff adders.

Lies! We have Adders and False Widow spiders, which when they bite can sting a bit!

and don't forget we have the deadly house cat, which will push everything off the sideboard as soon as you turn your back, and steal food right off your plate!

Yeah, I always tap out the shoes real good. It's long been a habit. These things won't kill you unless you are very young, very old, or very frail. They will, however, make walking very uncomfortable for a few days when then sting your toe! They have a cousin around here, though, the bark scorpion, that apparently is quite deadly. To the best of my knowledge I don't have any of those in my yard. My point is that it's 4 months early for these things to be out, if they've even gone dormant this year at all (Or hibernated or whatever they call it when these things disappear for the winter; I'm too lazy to look it up right now). We don't have much around here that will kill you; the biggest we have are of course rattlesnakes and mountain lions, along with a couple other larger cats, and coyotes if they are desperate enough to attack, but generally they are afraid of people. Oh, and serial killers. We mostly have the little things.

EDIT:

Impressive, but of little consolation to the guy that was just bitten by the rattler! Dead is dead.

Ye and Mice ... Chew your house down man !!

The deadliest thing we have here in the UK is the ex wife..... Nuff said!!

The deadliest creature of all, to be sure!

@Jerry Tremble, tell me about it I've got 2!!! Lol

We did recently have an infestation of " Jeremy Clarksons " here in the UK
We did manage to contain them though so ye .. we get some bad stuff here as well

That was hilarious! Thank you, synchromesh! We don't get enough English comedy over here, and most people here don't really understand it (including, at times, myself), but my late father was of English descent and showed a little bit of it to me. Mostly Monty Python (lol, speaking of snakes). And the Goodies!!!!!!!! Goody goody yum yum! In the 70's we only got them on PBS, along with Doctor Who (it all depended on the year and the current program director). When I grew up, I learned and was amazed at how many "American" shows were actually derived from what were originally British shows. "All in the Family" was the first I was aware of, based as well on a BBC production. Anyway, regardless of where it comes from, it was shear brilliance! Thanks again!

Here in Canada we actually do get scorpions however not in the city I'm in. We are having the strangest weather ever this year. One day it was -45C (-49F) then the next it was 6C (42.8).

Dead might be dead, I think I rattle snake is 15 and puff adder is 23 on the scale.

Rattle snake in general will kill you in about a day or so if left untreated, puff adder about 30 minutes, I really wasn't joking when I said get your self some shade, so you don't smell right away.Black mamba on the other hand 9 to 15 minutes, if the fangs find blood vessels you pretty much done for. Black mamba deaths rarely occurs.

Puff adder bites occur far more frequent due to the way they hunt, the basically go and lie in a field either in or close to a path that animals walk in, they don't give any warning or move out of the way, most people got bitten because then stepped on one.

With a rattle snake you get warning, if you still get bitten, it's really your own fault, with a puff adder not much of any thing.

You can get a pretty vicious bite from grandchildren,that’s why there called ankle biters .

Dave

That's nothing compared to our ladybugs, they swarm in their hundreds and can irritate your skin !!

When I was a child our cat dragged in a living crossed viper. I don't have any memory of this but I was apparently gleefully excited about the big worm Lucky brought in. My mother a lot less so.



Nowadays all the thick bushes and scrubbery I used to play in as a kid are luxury suburban areas.

As for the climate...yes. Way over 10 degrees celsius lately and floods. In the 90s we used to get those lovely snowy landscapes for months around now. Really cold weather and we'd go sledding. The seasons had their defined characteristics...I miss that a lot to be honest.



-Wolf

Our seasons have their defined characteristics, we have cold and wet, cool and wet, warmish and wet and bleh!

Currently transitioning between the first two.

The area where I've been living for the last 5 years (eastern South Africa) has been getting around 10 inches of rain a year, which is fine for a desert, but since this is savannah/woodland, it's not great, and about half of what we should be getting. We've had 6 inches of rain so far this season, and nothing in January, which is usually one of the wettest months. Whether this is just a normal dry cycle or there's more to it, I don't know, but the vegetation is really taking strain.

Over here in the UK I hear all the time about how bad climate change is but for me it just seems all pretty random ..
One winter maybe colder than usual .. Next year warm .. Then cold and rain ( same with summer and spring etc )
Farmers may say " Strawberries out early this year " or late the next...
Personally think its slightly exaggerated .. A cold winter is exactly that ... just colder than the last for whatever reason.
Its never really changed since I was a kid and now I'm over 50 ..

Never believed in that,I just think it’s Mother Nature doing its own thing .

Dave

Yeah the way I see it is the Ice Age still has many decades left to melt lol The entire Earth was covered in snow for centuries. Perhaps the melting causes drastic effects world wide. Than again im no scientist.

I did find a home video of myself and family in March of 1992 and it was green grass and summer looking weather out. Since then its always been cold and snowy in March here in Canada.

While I'm not a scientist myself (at least in the discipline of weather), I do understand some of what is going on. I did not post this to get into a pissing match of whose local fauna was more vicious, nor to blame nature or man. What I was pointing out was an example of the effects of what is happening. These little sh*ts are nothing more than a nuisance, but their behavior is an indication of something real. I don't do twitter or facebook (I do have a facebook account but never use it). Teabone, 1992, nice and green, is an example of weather. Climate is a totally different thing. Look north to see what is happening. The Arctic circle is a lot closer to you than to me. How much ice was there in 1992? How much is there now? NASA has the images. They've been around a while, and have been taking pictures all along. Anyway, the tapering off of an Ice Age is still a possibility, and I hope that that turns out to be the case. It doesn't matter to me the cause. We ALL need to get together and STOP the scorpions from entering Jerry Tremble's house during the winter months so that he feels safe to walk barefoot indoors!!!!!!

Whats really scary about the current melting ice caps is they have some very dangerous bacteria trapped in them that will soon be released. Similar to anthrax which was contracted to caribou deer and than on to live stock and humans.

@Jerry Tremble - if it makes you feel any better, I had one of these running around my bedroom a few nights ago. Harmless, but I really don't want them in bed with me.

Gtox- I have no idea what that is, however yikes and double yikes! Good luck with eradicating that!

@Jerry Tremble - it's a Solifuge/Red Roman/Camel spider, a relative of spiders and scorpions. Non venomous, but fast, huge and ugly. I generally just escort them outside. Once you accept that they're harmless and just run around cluelessly until they hit something, they're no so bad .

It's not really a pissing match, we're just joking with you, we know we're lucky, that's why all out posts are silly

In seriousness though, this is what I encountered a couple of years ago:


And this is how my arm looked after it had started healing, I had a huge reaction the venom, the skin bubbled up and blistered, in the first day or so it was hit and miss as to whether it would spread, and whether I would loose my arm (note this is RARE reaction to this spiders venom, not the normal):

Anyone who was watching the Snooker last week would have seen that they were plagued with wasps for the entire tournament, in January!

We had a Theraphosa blondi* a couple of years ago, lovely beast, told little kids that visited that it was only a baby and I was looking after it for Hagrid. (*'Goliath bird eater' but they don't eat birds btw )

We also had a 'Camel spider', weird name for something that isn't a spider and looks nothing like a Camel, really tough critters to cater for but fascinating to watch them eat, a bit like feeding a wood chipper.

Current 'best exotic' of the menagerie is a toss-up between Izzy (8 foot female Carpet Python from somewhere near Brisbane, Australia) and Rheagar (4.5 foot male B&W Tegu from Argentina). In reality both are probable captive bred somewhere in Europe, Holland or Germany would be a good bet, so have never seen 'home'.

We also have Darren, a red headed Agama from somewhere along the west coast of Africa, he came to us as rescue as my son works at the dockyard and it came in on one of the container ships. The crew were trying to stomp on the poor thing, why I can't imagine as they are completely harmless, so my son quickly scooped it up put it in his pocket.

We have representative from every continent, except of course Antartica which currently doesn't have any native reptiles but climate change will soon sort that out!

(oh and in case anyone is wondering, we don't know if the Goliath was 'handle-able', never found anyone brave enough to try!)

Belidos-OUCH! Reminds me of a brown recluse bite. What kind of spider is that?

It's a false widow

Here is a piccy of Rhaegar, my daughters 'Dragon', and yes she is a big GOT fan!