With Spring weather just around the corner ( we hope!) it would seem appropriate to discuss the emergence of bugs and insects that we'll soon be dealing with as we spend more time in the great outdoors.
Here's a bunch of crazy facts about flying and crawling critters that i read in the book "1001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out Of You", written by Cary McNeal. The book is quite interesting and the commentary by McNeal is quite funny too.
As for the bugs and insects....
There are 10 quintillion insects on the planet at any given moment, meaning there's approx 1.5 million bugs for every human.
It would take 500-800 honey bee stings to kill you, based on the toxic effects of the venom alone, though 1 sting could kill a person with an allergy due to an anaphylactic reaction.
The seemingly harmless Ladybug has been know to inflict unprovoked bites and release a defensive secretion that causes a stinging sensation on human skin.
The most dangerous insect in the world is the mosquito! It is responsible for the spread of malaria, which infects 350 - 500 million people annually and kills about a million of those victims. There are 2500 species of mosquitoes in the world, with 200 of them existing in the United States alone.
One of the largest terrestrial insects in North America is the wheel bug. They are considered as beneficial to the garden as lady bugs because they kill off other insect pests by piercing their prey with a large beak and injecting them with flesh dissolving poison. That means that if they bite a human, the wound can take weeks to heal and the pain can be excruciating.
Cockroaches can carry as many as 40 different pathogens that can be transferred to humans, including pneumonia, hepatitis and typhoid. They can also survive for up to two weeks without a head.
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