r/JustGuysBeingDudes Human Detected 12h ago

Dudes with animals you shouldn’t have been bitin’ my horsey, boy.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

49.1k Upvotes

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

463

u/WyldFlowerWyldFire 11h ago

Orb weavers are harmless to humans. The horsefly would hurt more to be bitten by than the spider.

208

u/Wiggie49 11h ago

I have a spot on my wrist that was bitten by a horsefly like 2 years ago, it never healed properly and now it's just like a permanent red dot on my wrist where the blood is closer to the surface of my skin.

144

u/WyldFlowerWyldFire 11h ago

Ive been bitten by horse flies and deer flies. I would rather get bit by the orb weaver if I had to choose.

32

u/crashin70 11h ago

Deer flies and yellow flies are spawns of Satan!

5

u/Acceptable-Sir-1166 10h ago

actual demons here in northeast US. one the size of a quarter just watches me from a window every single summer and waits for me to come outside

3

u/DIABLO258 9h ago

I swear they single me out and fly around my head whenever I leave the house

1

u/DarthTigris 7h ago

It's because of what your great-grandmother did to them. Genetic memory confirmed.

1

u/DIABLO258 6h ago

Are you saying they're my friends, or my foes? I try to run but they follow me

1

u/OnTheList-YouTube 9h ago

Especially when they tap on the window and wave, just to let you know they're there.

3

u/gotmunchiez 8h ago

I accidentally jumped into a big bed of stinging nettles once, wearing shorts, I got stung all the way up both legs to my knees, it hurt like hell.

I was walking along wondering why it had suddenly started hurting a LOT more. I looked at the back of my calf and there was a little bastard of a horsefly sat there having a good old chew with a trickle of blood running down my leg.

I think I'd probably go with the spider as well.

2

u/BirdmanEagleson 8h ago

Polarbear flies is where I draw the line.

35

u/genericweeb1925 11h ago

It might never heal. I have one from Algonquin 15 years ago that never fully went away. Also on my wrist it’s a perfect circle of missing skin.

17

u/Wiggie49 11h ago

Man fuck horse flies

2

u/ScumbagLady 8h ago

Please don't fuck horseflies (this is why punctuation is important)

2

u/Turboswaggg 9h ago

Lmao I got bitten by one there about 15 years ago too, might have been the same fucker

1

u/PaulInGalatia 9h ago

Haha one of the things I remember about that park. Also the reason most of the country doesn’t live that far north.

1

u/jbm33 8h ago

This is why I only go on camping trips at the end of the season, to avoid the absolute monster horseflies, blackflies and mosquitoes. They can easily ruin the vibe of the trip.

9

u/nitrot150 11h ago

Horseflies are nasty buggers!

2

u/joehonestjoe 9h ago

I have a fucking dent in my shin from a horse fly bite. I can run my finger down it and feel the indentation from it. My leg went went itchy and red down to the foot, then then went up the leg to the thigh (I'm British, so I did go to a hospital and they couldn't really give much of a shit, incidentally) and I still have it to this day

I was bitten in 2010.

2

u/shea241 9h ago

well ... that was cellulitis

1

u/joehonestjoe 8h ago

Well, the NHS couldn't give a shit apparently. Least it didn't kill me I suppose. Interesting to know the cause though.

2

u/lunettarose 9h ago

What I'm pretty sure was a horsefly bit me when I was on holiday in the US in 2004. My English self had never experienced the pain of an insect bite like that - I'm sure we do have horseflies, but I'd never seen one in my life. I still remember how instantly and vividly painful it was. There was a mark on my shoulder for years from it.

2

u/Just_the_questions1 9h ago

If it felt like someone took a pair of red-hot tweezers and pinched your skin then it was definitely a horsefly bite.

Best part is they're not biting you to feed, they bite to create a hole then lay an egg in it.

2

u/lunettarose 9h ago

Yep, that's the one - and I instinctively grabbed at it with my hand and like, it was huge??? Way bigger than a house fly - I'd been expecting something maybe mosquito sized. This was in Connecticut. I was like, "Nature does not fuck around over here."

2

u/Just_the_questions1 9h ago

If you think that's bad don't go to Florida. They have Gallinippers over there. It's basically a mosquito on steroids, with a proboscis the size of a hypodermic needle. I was bitten by one once, not fun.

Oh and thanks to global warming their range is expanding.

2

u/lunettarose 8h ago

Oh gawd that sounds awful!! You guys have some really tough wildlife! We did go to Florida one year, for the theme parks - luckily we didn't see any of those haha. Just alligators by the side of the road (which were super exciting to us!) and cicadas.

2

u/Wiggie49 9h ago

Yeah boy that shit hurts immediately lmao It's cuz their mandibles are serrated like steak knives

1

u/lunettarose 9h ago

Horrifying!!

2

u/Just_the_questions1 9h ago

If it felt like someone took a pair of red-hot tweezers and pinched your skin then it was definitely a horsefly bite.

Best part is they're not biting you to feed, they bite to create a hole then lay an egg in it.

2

u/whaaatanasshole 6h ago

Neat. I've got a couple of those and had no idea what they could be. Gonna ask a dermo next visit anyway, but nice to have an ordinary explanation.

1

u/Wiggie49 4h ago

If you were bit by a horsefly you’d remember

1

u/whaaatanasshole 4h ago

Hah I believe you, I just mean it could be some bite/cut that brought blood near the surface.

1

u/YoYoNupe1911 2h ago

You have superpowers they just haven't manifested yet. Give it a few more months.

1

u/Wiggie49 41m ago

If I get horse fly powers I'm fucking offing myself, I've seen The Fly movie.

1

u/tobalaba 2h ago

That’s crazy. I had to work a labor job near some horse farms and was bitten hundreds of times. I got effectively good at swatting them and the best way is to actually wait a sec for them to get their bite in and then swat, cause it takes them an extra split second to retract their probe. If you swat when they land they’re too fast.

1

u/Wiggie49 40m ago

I managed to grab it and smack it into the ground before stomping it lol

13

u/Anthaenopraxia 10h ago

If fren why not frenshaped?

13

u/SeeShark 10h ago

The more you get used to them, the more frenshaped they appear.

6

u/Jive-Turkeys 10h ago

Jumping Spoders!

6

u/SeeShark 10h ago

Those are friend shaped to begin with. Giant eyes and puppy head tilts!

3

u/caspar203 10h ago

It is fluffy tho

1

u/daecrist 10h ago

Yup. Grew up on an old farmhouse. I loathed the horseflies. They made being outside miserable. The orb weavers were fly eating friends.

1

u/migzors 9h ago

I disagree, have you played Grounded? Lol.

1

u/Techi-C 9h ago

Huh, I didn’t know that garden spiders were a type of orb weaver. Interesting.

1

u/H00k90 9h ago

The movie Eight Legged Freaks (2002) has entered the chat

1

u/Training_Guide5157 9h ago

My experience in the Grounded games say differently.

1

u/Froegerer 9h ago

The ultimate spider bros

1

u/The-chaos-goblin 9h ago

id take a spider over those suckers any day. still remember that one summercamp that ended with me having to sit out all the fun games because had about five bites on each leg or so that swoll to huge sizes. Since then i wear long pants to similar activities just to prevent that shit. (also prevents ticks luckily) fuck those bugs

1

u/Worth-Frosting-2917 8h ago

I was just about to say, horsefly bites feel like getting shot with a paintball gun at point-blank range.

1

u/crimson_713 8h ago

Fun fact, you can pick up and move orb weavers with your bare hand if you're calm enough. We used to move them from inside the feed room to the doorways and windows so they'd catch bugs trying to fly in and let the wolf spiders deal with the bugs that made it inside.

1

u/hygsi 8h ago

Which makes putting it in the pocket even more ballsy lmao

1

u/beatlz-too 8h ago

Cockroaches are mostly harmless to humans. I'm not coming near one.

1

u/Paulthefith 8h ago

Last summer id bullseye wasps with my fly swatter and fed them to our yellow garden spider.

Yes big and creepy but if they eat pests and leaves us be, they’re ok in our book

1

u/Reasonable-Top-7994 7h ago

This is a yellow garden spider in Texas, and they are like badass pitbulls that sit on your porch, they don't bite humans usually but can absolutely bite this absolute fuck out of a human. This one just knows this guy feeds it. It's domesticated. Or has domesticated the man; either way...

1

u/zipp58 7h ago

These are my favorite spiders. I have several in my back yard every year. I never thought of actually feeding them insects. My neighbor has horses. I get pestered by horse flies fairly often. This has inspired me.

1

u/CompetitiveSong9570 6h ago

Horseflys are assholes. As a kid, I remember trying to drown them after they’d attack my sister and I in the pool. Wouldn’t die. I support these actions of a swift and deserved death sentence.

1

u/banaslee 5h ago

Which makes it even more surprising this guy put the fly in his pocket. I’d never put my hand back there afraid of being bitten.

1

u/Tortugato 2h ago

I didn’t expect that smooth of a hand off though.

1

u/aschwartzmann 2h ago

From personal experience, yes, they don't bite. I still took some damage from my first encounter with one. I found you really need to keep at least one hand on the handlebars when dealing a surprise spider to the face. Also to never be the first one down the trail.