Believe it or not, there are things out there that are worse than spiders. First and foremost to me, is the Assassin Bug. This is a member of the order Hemiptera, and they range from .5 to a full inch long, at least in North America. Oh, and they carry enough poison to kill a caterpillar 400 times their weight in about 8 seconds. Everyone knows that cockroaches are basically indestructible, right? Not so to the little assassin bug, in 3 or 4 seconds that little tank that could, can't.
Now, thankfully these demons eat spiders. Well, most of them. The thing is, there's 6600 or so species of assassin bugs and they couldn't all eat the same thing. So some of them eat spiders, some eat caterpillars, and some eat praying mantises, and so on. Oh, and the ones in the more tropical places enjoy killing birds, reptiles, and smaller mammals.
Still not seeing a downside to tiny marauding bugs? What about when they can kill you? That's right, the bane of spider's existence can also have unpleasant (and deadly besides), effects on human beings.
There's an undesirable pathogen hiding inside the bodies of some of these insects, and trust me - you do NOT want to get infected. See, they happen to have this disease in them called Chagas disease. Sounds vaguely official, and not exactly threatening. Right?
BUT it is actually quite deadly. First, you'll have the standard fever and inflammation commonly associated with a bug bite. But then, the symptoms go away and there are hardly ever parasites found in the blood. Then the bad part - 20-30% develop the chronic symptoms. Abnormalities in the heart beat, failing to pump blood effectively, and dialation in the digestive track, leading to issues eating and using the bathroom. And *then* you die, if you haven't treated it.
Wondering what this little guy might look like? For full effect, here's the one that kills spiders...and then wears the corpses as armor.
So with that happy image in your head, have fun sleeping tonight!
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