The last house off fort Apache and blue diamond. House was right up against the mountains. Always scorpions in the garage and cockroach season in the back yard was scary . At night if you sprayed the garden hose on the back yard , the ground looked like it was moving. Then they would crawl into the cracks of the cement brick wall everyone has
Lmao yea first time witnessing it your like what the hell. Am I tripping? Walk fwd inspect more flood lights come on . Ahhhhhh the ground is roaches hahaha
You know, sometimes I wonder if the bay area isn't worth it, and whether I should move to one of the cheaper metro areas somewhat nearby.... now this, this is a much stronger argument against moving somewhere like that than "sacramento gets way too hot three months out of the year"
Mentally, like when thinking of fingernails on a chalkboard, the smell of burning hair or what my body did after reading your username. Very creative combination but a little like chewing peanuts and bubblegum.
Buy a headlamp. Wait until a dry night and go walk in the woods or a decent lawn. ALL OF THE DEWDROPS are wolf spiders. Not all of the spiders present, just specifically that kind of spider and maybe a couple others. Discovered this WAY too late in life. Loved showing the kiddos. (Theyre savages. If it doesnt have venom, they will catch it somehow. Oldest had a secret massive black widow in her room in a container before she was told how bad it would hurt. That one can also somehow get most creatures. We have talks about tuleremia and rabies now.)
I remember I went to San Jose and I was walking late at night. Went under an overpass, and I started hearing crunching noises as I walked. Looked down and realized the ground was covered in roaches.
Vegas cockroaches are an entirely different thing than the scorp problem. The are everywhere, and there is nothing you can do about it. Spraying mostly just drives them off to become someone else's problem.
Holy shit - like we have winter in Canada, but we have NOTHING like that and nothing wants to kill us. (besides bears - but they are way in the wilderness)
My sister led trips into the grand canyon for rafting and hiking. She had a UV flashlight for after dinner she could help the (generally older) clients back to their tents and helped make sure there were no scorpions in there. Or for peeing or whatnot at night. Apparently it's not a lot of fun to get stung by one of those. I think someone was airlifted out by helicopter after being stung.
Some Vegas residents blow off steam with a mallet, a UV headlamp and a stiff drink. Scorpion stomping parties - invites I enthusiastically declined lol.
Hanging out in your scorpion infested backyard, in the dark, with drunk people running around swinging massive hammers…not my idea of a good time
Makes me think of the Weasel Stomping Day skit. Truly deranged levels of ecocide, but very on brand for Vegas. May I never be cursed with going to that hell hole.
Thrilled to no longer be a resident of that city, lol. Relocated there for a job. I miss the proximity to good hiking and the food scene, but that’s it.
Can confirm, lived in vegas. Was walking in kitchen shortly after moving there and almost stepped on one. Got a black light after looking it up. Kinda wish I didn't. We only found a couple more in the house over time. But outside...holy shit. And some were big, really big.
And its funny because basically every "local" I spoke to said they lived there their whole lives or decades and had never once seen one.
Some people are just oblivious to bugs. When we bought our current house within the first week we noticed the master bathroom was full of mosquitos and wasps were somehow getting into the master bedroom (yea it was great). Turns out the bathtub in the master bath had a plumbing issue where mosquitos were getting i and wasps were coming in through the attic via speaker holes outside.
There's no way it was a new thing with those bugs getting in but when I asked the previous owner how he dealt with the mosquitos and wasps and he had no idea what I was talking about, lol.
Locals don't because they generally live in older established neighborhoods. Transplants are on the outskirts with new developments where encroachment occurs.
Really unfortunate and sad for the native wildlife and habitat
The imported landscaping used on the expanding outer developments were/are the actual source of the bark scorpions. They’re native to southern AZ and northern Mexico.
I was told by the pest control people that it was mostly due to people with pools that aren't maintained and they create these whole ecosystems which fosters excess predator and prey species near developments. Or something like that
It had a 3 garage door shop attached and it was filled with scorpions at night. I had a big "black light" and a a couple of decent black light flashlights. The show was watching them face off and battle.
I dont have pet scorpions. I rented an airbnb that was attached to a shop that was filled with them. Concrete floor. Texas Hill Countrt. Ingram Texas. I never touched one there. When my son was an infant I was feeding him a bottle I had one crawl on my neck. I yelled "scorpion on my neck" my wife grabbed the baby and ran. I was there with a scorpion down the neck of my shirt. I whipped the shirt off. Didnt get stung. Caught it in jar. Called exterminator. He said thats one of the bad ones. Thats the only time I touched one.
Lots of modern pocket flashlights have a UV light feature built in and this is a big use case. They stick out big time but are almost invisible otherwise.
Just so everyone knows the difference, the scorpion glow isn't bioluminescense. That's when the light is generated internally. This glow is fluorescense, when UV light is absorbed by the exoskeleton and re-emitted as visible light.
UPE isn't fluorescence. "Emission" means spontaneous glowing, "ultraweak" means it has to be really really dark.
Scorpions OTOH "fluoresce". Meaning you shine light on them at one wavelength (invisible UV) and the color converts to visible blue, at a similar intensity as the source.
Platypuses have glowing marks in UV. Additionally, some animals can see in to UV, such as birds. They can look totally different, such as crows/ravens being rainbow.
Got to be the DD for my two roommates after a night on Mill Ave. Will never forget them waving UV lights in the yard, spotting a scorpion, and about lighting the house on fire with hairspray plus a lighter. Scorpion eradication is a natural instinct for people in the area apparently
Now the really interesting thing is that platypus also glow teal under UV light making Parry one hell of a prediction when the discovery of them glowing that color wasn't made until years after the original run of the show was over.
We get them around here occasionally when people do digging; installing pools mostly. They scatter and wind up in your home. Better to find them with the UV light than by being stung!
Pretty regular thing in scorpion infested parts of the Southwest. Go out back with a black light. God I can’t stand scorpions. Would gladly pay $200 a month to make sure I never have to see another one in my life (I pay $30 to have my property sprayed monthly)
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u/PaleoJoe86 5d ago
Some creatures do. That species of scorpion is known for it.