A Bug's Life

This post is especially for our friends that dabble in the field of Entomology.  Especially our 2 little friends who live just around the corner from us back home. You know who you are!  (We miss you boys!)

In Wyoming we enjoy a wide variety of insects.  Correction, some enjoy them.  I personally do NOT like bugs.  I'm sure they have their place, but if they think that place is in my home then they have another thing coming!  I do have a soft spot for lady bugs.  Mosquitoes, we have found, are UNIVERSALLY hated.  In Nigeria we have mosquitoes.  Around here in fact, 1 in 4 is supposed to carry Malaria.  Thankfully, we haven't seen any yet and as far as we know, we haven't received any bites.  As I haven't seen any of these disease transmitters I have no pictures of them to share with you.  If I do see one, there will not be a camera in Nigeria that will be able to decipher what it is after I'm done "seeing" it.

Besides mosquitoes, we have an abundance of ants here.  Teeny fast ants that crawl in your room on your counters and in your closet.  There are big giant ants an inch long:

Eww! 

These guys can inflict quite the nasty bite we have heard.  Thankfully I've just seen the one, and it was outside.  Gigantic Ant is nothing compared to the "acid" ant.  What is an acid ant?  Imagine a bug that if you squash it, emits an acid that will actually eat at your skin.  Sounds graphic but we have been told that people have been disfigured if they get it on their faces and will certainly at least have a scar if they do not care for it properly.  It is bright red and black.  Oh and it flies!  We think we saw one this morning at our table but we double-napkin squashed it and so far so good.

Nigeria is also full of some very interesting looking bugs such as this well dressed Green Leafy Bug (no idea of the real name, just winging it here):

It reminds me of katydids and preying mantis bugs back home.  This guy was several inches long.  Now, what is a bug to do who prefers to hang out on the branch of a tree instead of the leaves?  Well, meet the cleverly disguised Mottled Bark Camo Bug:

He is maybe 3 inches long.

Other than these exotic varieties we have encountered some (thankfully) boring spiders, skinny millipedes and some sort of sand fly/flea that leaves lovely flat red blotches on your extremities that later turn in to hard bumps that itch.  I have a few of those itchy spots right now, just hoping that they are that and not mosquito bites.  I haven't positively identified any tsteste flies by sight, but we think Matt has had a couple bites.   We did see one HUGE sort of fly with legs that extended at least 3 inches out.  Can't think of what to compare it to at the moment. 

As long as you are a responsible bug spray wearer, keep your room clean and patrol for crumbs regularly, you have a good chance of avoiding too many bugs.

Outside, there are lizards in abundance that help with the bug populations.We have seen so many more bugs here than in Myanmar.   I'm chalking it up to living in the jungle as opposed to city plus there are not many geckos either.  There are fish in the standing water ponds that keep the mosquitoes at bay and bats that feast on them at night.

Well, that's all for this creepy crawly post!