Bugs and Other Philippine Wildlife

I grew up a mile high, just outside Denver, Colorado USA. It was cold in the winter, and bugs were limited to those which could survive freezing weather. Many can, the most troublesome of which to me were red fire ants, black widow spiders and tomato worms.

Fire ants are bigger than most ants that inhabit the Philippines, and nastier. When they bite it feels like . . . yes, fire . . . for several days. They are red and the biggest are maybe a centimeter long. They hide out underground during the winter then emerge in the spring from huge hills about a meter across, running all over the place to forage for food. They are carnivorous and eat about any living creature. If they detect a threat, they don't flee. They attack. Our revenge was to pour gasoline down their nests and fire it up. Or huge M-80 fire crackers, little sticks of dynamite. You couldn't kill many that way, but you could assure they would be hard of hearing for a few days.

Black widow spiders are deadly poisonous. They live through the winter by hiding out in dark, warm places, like the garage. It is wise to look carefully beneath anything you pick up. That big round body, shiny and black about the size of a pea, would scare the bejesus out of me. They define creepy, in color and ominous shape and reputation and the way they move, as if stalking, across the underside of things. My father got bit on the neck once and his head swelled to the size of a basketball. Black widows helped me develop one of my two main phobias. One is arachnophobia.  The other, claustrophobia, a tale for a different telling.

Tomato Worm

Tomato worms are not poisonous. They don't even bite. But they are huge and green and have a habit of roosting right where you can catch hold of them whilst reaching for a tomato. I suppose they survive the winter by being an egg or something. I dunno. But they have legs like a caterpillar, are about an inch thick and five inches long, and their insides are green, rather like guacamole, a ground up avocado. I know, because after jumping 18 feet into the air and shrieking like a howler monkey in heat, I would stomp on them, and what you get is what you get.

Now the Philippines has a much more robust population of bugs. And they are bigger. And more of them are poisonous.

There are so many ants that I have stopped trying to avoid them. They crawl all over me as I wander amongst the bamboo, where the larger black ones live, and I flick them off if they tickle or do their minor biting thing. There are spiders everywhere, big gray-brown long-legged ones. In the bathroom, on the screen, under rocks, in the bamboo. I've had them on my arms and legs and they are teaching me that they don't really like me either. So my arachnophobia is actually easing.

Let's see. Cockroaches you can ride. Centipedes that really ruin your day. Big hairy tarantula-like spiders and wee little hopping spiders. The hoppers seem to like my computer desk, and nibbling on my elbow. Huge worms that look like centipedes to me; but my wife says they are harmless.

Anything with 2,000 legs is NOT harmless.

Beetles large enough to form a rock band. Praying mantises; Catholics, I am sure. Caterpillars that can devour a huge plant in a day or two; I presume their poops have nutrients. All kinds of nameless, faceless things flying this way and that. A cute orange bug with black spots that looks like an overgrown lady bug on steroids. But it bites.

So it is no wonder the reptile population also thrives. With that much gourmet food on the wing and ground, the lizards grow fat and happy. The snakes, which dine on the lizards, also grow fat and happy.  The frogs are here one day and gone the next. I suppose also cuisine for the snakes. Every once in a while I will stumble across a huge frog, about a foot in length, brown, just like the ground I am walking on. Too big for a snake to eat. So I am developing frogophobia, because that is just not right, to be that invisible and that hideously huge and ugly.

But you can tell they are Philippine creatures, because they show up inside the house anytime, without invitation.

One frog was even trying on my shoe for size. I think he wanted to borrow it.

Hahahahahahaha

Have a jolly good day!