And here is a harmless lizard before the scary photos.
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| oh hey. just hanging out here for a minute. no worries. |
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| 4ft boa that was chilling in our dive shop. |
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| can you spot all 3 tarantulas? sorry to say mr. middle one has met his maker. |
This is jungle life, welcome. Stopping to let a snake cross the road on my way to work is no longer a novelty, it’s a routine. Last night I caught a ride home with a friend and as he pulled up his headlight shone on my scooter, which was crawling with 3 boa constrictors. Um, kinda glad I didn’t go try to start that up in the dark. Lesson learned the easy way that time, thankfully.
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| here’s one of the snakes that lives by my house. sometimes i find him in the yard, sometimes i find him outside the door on my deck. sneaky bastard. the locals call this type of snake a ‘captain sawyer’. why? i don’t know. someone probably just made it up one time. that’s what happens on islands. |
In the last three days two guests at the resort I work at have been stung by scorpions in their beds, and one of the other dive instructors went to change back into his dry clothes after a dive and there was a scorpion in there too. They swear it’s not as bad as a bee sting so I guess I could handle it since I survived my very first bee sting a few months ago here, but I really have no interest in running into one. So far, so good. Keep your fingers crossed for me. [Edited months later to add: I have now been stung twice by scorpions in my house. Once while sitting on the couch and once in bed. If you ever sleep in the same bed as an islander you’ll notice some of them wrap up their sheets and whip the bed with it before getting in – this knocks out any sand and creatures! I took up this habit after the second sting. FYI, it was on par with a bee sting… uncomfortable enough to make my eyes water but not hospital-worthy.]
I let all kinds of lizards, geckos and skinny little spiders live in my house to eat all the bugs. But snakes, scorpions and tarantulas can stay outside! I might be a tough jungle chick but that’s where I draw the line.
I know I’m very late, but what area of the island were you staying at?
Where is the least amount of wildlife on the Island? I do not like snakes, spiders, or scorpions. Is there a lot of poisonous creatures on the Island?
I really hope the 5 star resort we are staying in has some way of controlling these things. Spiders are not a problem but snakes are and Scorpions are new to me, so I don’t know about them.Maybe I should bring RAID with me or One Shot.
You won’t be seeing any snakes or scorpions in a 5 star resort. Spiders and cockroaches, maybe. Mosquitoes and sand flies, definitely!
RIKA
We got the Mosquitoes and sandfly bites. Did yo get my last two messages? Robert
A rough rule is that people should be more wary of ones with thinner claws, as these instead reply more on venom from the sting, the ones with big claws often use more brute force from the claws to subdue prey. Good news is scorpion surveys in Honduras and neighbouring countries so far haven't turned up any 'dangerous' scorpions, those you'll get a few in Costa rica/Panama only spreading to South America, and there's a few others in Mexico to be especially wary of. Not in Honduras though, as yet – bee sting like at worst, no noticeable effect at best, the common genus of thin clawed ones is Centruroides.
I think they can be… but they aren't the big black kind with massive front claws that you're probably imagining. They are smaller, skinnier and brown. Don't know if that makes them any less poisonous, but I know a few people who have been stung here and likened it to a bad bee sting, but nothing over-the-top awful.
Oh nice! I thought scorpion stings were really poisonous?
Well, I saw significantly less of these when I lived in town. I'm now housesitting in the jungle, so I see lots more!
I know for a fact I could not live there. I'm SO nervous about the creepy crawlies in Northern Thailand! We went to the snake farm in Bangkok and even though they were safely behind glass, I was still creeped out. No thanks!
Yes!! No creepy crawlies, and thankfully no sandflies or mosquitoes either. Being underwater is the best!
Girl, now we know why you spend most of your time UNDERWATER! Spiders can't get you there!
Hahah solid warning at the beginning!! 🙂
WHY DID I SEE THIS
I try to let a few lizards and geckos live inside because they eat the bugs…but they poop everywhere! We have hermit crabs here too, tiny ones on the beach and huge ones in the jungle (and giant ones in the sea!) and I would much rather see them than the damn snakes and spiders.
Ooooooooh, hate bugs in bikini bottoms! At work I've learned to shake my stuff out first… my co-worker had the scorpion issue, and I usually find cockroaches or spiders in mine 🙁
I quite enjoyed the little lizards and geckos when I was travelling around the Caribbean. They are so so cute. I didn't see many frogs but boy, do you hear them at night! I also really loved the little hermit crabs. So cute. (and okay, I hear myself cute-ing out right now, but srsly)
That snakeskin is fucking gross. And as much as I love frogs, I think I would die a little if something jumped out of my toilet.
Also, in my little hut on Saba, I had a little outdoor shower room/cabin, and let's just say this: moths and millipedes. And actually, that didn't bother me, but it was kind of gross finding a millipede in my bikini bottoms that I'd hung up after diving! Blergh!
Haha – yep, those little lizards are pretty cute. The snakes and spiders are less so 🙂
Thanks for the lizard picture, OMG to everything else. 0.0
Nope nope nope nopey nope nope. I could not handle living in your jungle. Although please tell me the Tarantula machete attack involved the flailing and screaming that I see in my mind, because that's how it would go down if it were me.
If I wouldn't have been blindingly drunk, I think there would have been more flailing and screaming. For some reason I thought I was some type of machete ninja, although I'm sure to the sober observer it looked otherwise. Either way, that dude is dead!
That reminds me a lot of Vietnam. We saw some lizards in the toilet and snakes on the road. You are living in such a wild place, take care and be careful! P.S. The green lizard is just adorable <3.
I love the little green lizards – those ones are everywhere! I can handle snakes and such outside… but NOT in my toilet!
I skipped down to the comments without looking at the photos. I just wanted to thank you for the warning. I get SO angry with people who post pics of spiders without a warning. Acrophobia is such an awful phobia!!!!
Aww! Well I'm glad I put that warning up. The snake pics were worse than the spider ones anyway, but none of the creepy crawlies make me thrilled!
Jeeze you must be tough! No way in hell I'd be dealing with that. I have a ridiculously unecessary fear of ANY type of spider. The snakes, I could deal with, but spiders no way. Even here in Canada, the dock spiders we have that are the size of my palm, I literally hyperventilate when I see them. Irrational, I know, but they scare the living eff out of me. x
The spiders can get pretty gross when they get to the tarantula variety. I let the skinny daddy longlegs ones live in the house to catch bugs…the rest get squished 🙂
Ahhh!! I could not handle that. My biggest fear is being strangled by a snake in my sleep…
I really, really hope I never wake up to a snake!!