What bugs/diseases/critters have ya'll seen that weren't around 30-40 years ago?

[MossRoad]

They can't carry rabies. They just have bad attitudes. Our Russian tortoise is an a-hole. Gives us dirty looks all the time, until you bring out food. Then he's your buddy.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Speaking of rabies... We have had two instances less than 1/4 from each other and 3/4 mile from where my son/sister/brother lives (yes all different houses). One a sweet dog that all of a sudden attacked a little girl and then last Thursday a retired pastor saw a fox outside his house. He took a rifle and it attacked him. He has started the rabies regimen and the fox is being tested. As the crow flies its about 2 miles from me and my daughter/granddaughter (yes different houses too).

Seen a lot more of rabies incidents since I was a kid.

 

[ponytug]

We had two bats die last week within days of each other. They only tested one, and luckily negative for rabies.

Nice article on the spread of the lone star tick, suggesting that it will eventually spread to most of the US east of the Rockies, and that certain western ticks may also cause the red meat allergy. (Alpha-gal) I didn't realize that alpha-gal causes at least some folks to have to avoid dairy as well.

‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis

Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for them

www.theguardian.com

The concept of a lone star tick bomb of juveniles is shivering inducing to me.

All the best,

Peter

 

[paulsharvey]

We had two bats die last week within days of each other. They only tested one, and luckily negative for rabies.

Nice article on the spread of the lone star tick, suggesting that it will eventually spread to most of the US east of the Rockies, and that certain western ticks may also cause the red meat allergy. (Alpha-gal) I didn't realize that alpha-gal causes at least some folks to have to avoid dairy as well.

‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis

Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for them

www.theguardian.com

The concept of a lone star tick bomb of juveniles is shivering inducing to me.

All the best,

Peter

There was a project a couple years ago, testing bats for "white nose" or something similar sounding.

 

[ponytug]

There was a project a couple years ago, testing bats for "white nose" or something similar sounding.

Good thought. It is around, but neither of these bats showed any signs.

At any rate, they elected not to test for it. I think it is a "public health" vs "wildlife health" issue. There certainly are other diseases for which bats are known vectors. I was more perturbed by two dead bats in eighteen years, within three days of each other.

The process was pretty funny; first you bag and deliver the bat to the local wildlife rehabilitation center (cool setup), they then call county public health, who then sends a runner to pick up the bat and bring it to the county public health lab, where it gets tested. When they phoned me with the results due to the concern for rabies risk, they did allow that in the future, I could directly drop off the specimen at the public health lab.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Good thought. It is around, but neither of these bats showed any signs.

At any rate, they elected not to test for it. I think it is a "public health" vs "wildlife health" issue. There certainly are other diseases for which bats are known vectors. I was more perturbed by two dead bats in eighteen years, within three days of each other.

The process was pretty funny; first you bag and deliver the bat to the local wildlife rehabilitation center (cool setup), they then call county public health, who then sends a runner to pick up the bat and bring it to the county public health lab, where it gets tested. When they phoned me with the results due to the concern for rabies risk, they did allow that in the future, I could directly drop off the specimen at the public health lab.

All the best,

Peter

Here, it used to be that you called the humane society, they'd pick up the bat, take it to a veterinarian that was located near the airport/bus station. The vet would euthanize the bat if it already wasn't dead, pack it in dry ice, put it on a bus down to Indy. The state bat lab would pick it up and test it. They'd call you if it was positive.

I asked if I could have them call me if it's negative, just to be sure they tested it. They'd never heard of that before.

To make a long story short, they lost the bats! (ours and several other families). That led to a lot of scrambling for the county and state health departments. The state bat lab was closed for remodeling so they sent them to Kentucky for testing. Ours came back negative, but they lost one of the other family's bats and the whole family had to get rabies shots.

The whole fiasco led to changes in our county policy. You now get notified with positive OR negative results.

 

[MossRoad]

Bold Jumping Spider.

I've seen other jumping spiders, zebra jumping spider in particular.

However, the bold jumper is supposed to be one of the most common jumpers in Indiana. I can't ever recall seeing one before. Then in the past several days there's been one hunting around our back door. Pretty cool.

 

[ponytug]

@MossRoad, I love watching them hunt. We have the zebra striped and speckled ones around here.

Their accuracy is amazing, and I can't help at being amazed that all of that behavior and accuracy is encoded in DNA.

All the best,

Peter

 

[tallyho8]

Alligators! Being raised in the swamps of southern Louisiana I spent many years hiking, exploring and playing in the swamps. Never saw an alligator. In the 1980s I spent 10 years in the Honey Island swamps training my coon dogs and just occasionally saw an alligator. I would hunt alone walking miles deep into the swamp with my dogs with no fears. Now, in the 2000s I have them in the ditch in front of my house, across the levee in the Mississippi River, and occasionally under my house. You could not pay me enough now to go in the Honey Island swamps by myself. They are everywhere.

Thousands are now caught every alligator hunting season and fried alligator are on the menu of many New Orleans restaurants. Also, nutrias, which do millions of dollars of damage to our levees each year but are only semi-controlled by the alligator population. At least the pelicans are finally back due to DDT being banned and I saw my first bald eagle about 2001 in a nest in a tree directly across the levee from my house. Also, the coyotes have taken over everywhere the Mississippi flows. Forget rabbit hunting because the coyotes got them all. And I can't play with ladybugs anymore because the only here now are the Chinese ones and they bite.

And did I mention hurricanes? We had Betsy in 1965 and not another one until Katrina in 2005, 40 years later, now they are a yearly visitor. Makes me wonder what will be around 50 more years from now.

 

[Runner]

Here is an Asian carp that jumped in the boat on a MO River trip. This was on the Platte River which is an estuary to the MO. The Platte is much smaller, maybe 100 to 200 feet wide and as you drive down the river, the fish are so numerous that they literally jump out of the water to get out of the way of the boat and sometimes land IN the boat.

As can be seen, they are fairly decent sized fish and can hurt a little if one hits you in the head....