What animal do you fear most? And why?

[Cervus elaphus]

@Cervus elaphas
That's why I keep a piss bottle in the tent.
If you want to see the shit hit the fan, throw a goanna into ya mates tent and zip it up. Stand back and watch the comedy show and see if you can still stand while laughing your guts out.
Bob

Regarding the goanna, I nearly got run over by one in towards the chooksville track. I hit the prone position quickly because he was eyeing me up as a convenient tree stump to climb and you know what their claws are like.

 

[Cervus elaphus]

@Cervus elaphas
That's why I keep a piss bottle in the tent.
If you want to see the shit hit the fan, throw a goanna into ya mates tent and zip it up. Stand back and watch the comedy show and see if you can still stand while laughing your guts out.
Bob

further: Missus is looking for a photo we took of a perente at Sawtell beach where we were camped in the caravan right next to a patch of bush - looked up and a big goanna I swear was nearly as big as a Komodo Dragon came strolling past between the awning and the edge of the bush. Being the brave soul I am, I left my good wife for bait and scurried into the caravan and shut the door !

 

[VertigoBE]

The female Homosapien is the most dangerous thing I've encountered. Long claws, long legs, and armed with a weapon that will render even the most determined man nearly helpless.

I don’t know what kind of variation you have where you live, but ours here are not limited to only one weapon...

 

[bowjijohn]

In no particular order

Black mamba
Croc
14 year old with AK

 

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

Dentist

 

[IvW]

Big Crocodile....invisible but totally deadly....

 

[Cervus elaphus]

Big Crocodile....invisible but totally deadly....

They have had millions of years to perfect their trade, humans are still learning. It's quite sobering to be in an environment where people are not the top of the food chain.

 

[Philip Glass]

Mamba

 

[Muskox]

In no particular order

Black mamba
Croc
14 year old with AK

That 3rd one.

We were in a convoy coming out of Kabul headed to Baghram in 2009.

Riding in the back of an open top cargo truck with troop seats with 20 of my new best friends from a variety of branches. We got to some cross section leaving town and this stupid guy and his kid raised their rifles. Half the truck must have shot them before they hit the ground.

It was kind of a choke point, and we just figured it was going to be a IED.

You don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt in Afghanistan, at least in 2009.

My ex-girlfriend was a Navy nurse and she ended up getting hit on the same road in a similar convoy by some kids on a motor scooter. Didn't penetrate her flack, but she was a long ways from making a career out of it and resigned the next week and went home. She was on extension year two, was making too much money to come back. That was the straw that broke the camels back.

She had a PHD in nursing (or whatever nurse practitioners get for education), and now owns a salon and does botox. Won't set foot in a hospital unless she is there because she is ill.

War is tough.

My old Major was an infantry officer in the Marines. We got drunk one night and he told me he couldn't count the number of teenage kids he killed in the warzone with an AK.

 

[Longwalker]

My son was bit by a rattlesnake when he was 2.5yrs old.

I was stung by a hornet at about the same age. Nowhere near as traumatic or damaging as his experience, but I remember it to this day, 60 years later. I was riding my tricycle on my parents front patio. Damn thing stung me on my bare thigh. Seemed completely unexpected and unjust.
To this day I am unreasonably afraid of wasps and bees and scorpions and suchlike. I've camped alone without a tent many times in bear country, no worries. Faced cape buffalo. And various snakes. Been stalked by wolves. Nothing like the terror of being chased by hornets.

 

[bowjijohn]

... and bees

An old friend lost his life, his brother his eyesight (temporarily) when they went poking around in the bush during school term time

I think they were at Plumtree

He was allergic to bee venom

his poking around enraged a swarm of bees resulting in multiple stings

it was a long time ago so I might not have recalled the events accurately

 

[Muskox]

We have Africanized bees in New Mexico. I have been stung multiple times by then.

We had a bee keeper go in and kill a hive in a tree, and they stung him savagely through his beekeeper outfit.

 

[BourbonTrail]

We have Africanized bees in New Mexico. I have been stung multiple times by then.

We had a bee keeper go in and kill a hive in a tree, and they stung him savagely through his beekeeper outfit.

+1. These are the only things I have ever run from. When they are swarming while looking for a new hive they are a nightmare. Bark scorpions, water moccasins and those mean little green rattlesnakes all suck, but if those bees are out and about, count me out.

 

[JimP]

+1. These are the only things I have ever run from. When they are swarming while looking for a new hive they are a nightmare. Bark scorpions, water moccasins and those mean little green rattlesnakes all suck, but if those bees are out and about, count me out.

While hunting javelina down in Arizona a couple of years ago we came upon this hive. I have no idea if they were African bees or not but I stayed a ways away from it. A friend walked right up to them and almost stuck his head into the hole.

 

[BourbonTrail]

While hunting javelina down in Arizona a couple of years ago we came upon this hive. I have no idea if they were African bees or not but I stayed a ways away from it. A friend walked right up to them and almost stuck his head into the hole.

View attachment 396222

I was trying to walk away from a pack of sleeping javies once, and I walked into a hive in the next wash over. After that I gave up and went home.

 

[JimP]

I was trying to walk away from a pack of sleeping javies once, and I walked into a hive in the next wash over. After that I gave up and went home.

It is always interesting down there. I was tracking one and walked into a rattle snake den. I stopped counting when I got up to 15 heads just inside of the den.

 

[WilhelmM]

Baboons mostly. They've got the cheekiness and nasty disposition of a monkey but they're as big as a medium to large-sized dog. Puff Adders are deadly but easy to avoid and move if you know where they are. Black mambas are extremely shy snakes but are like walking assault rifles if you stumble into one.

 

[Jörg Krüger]

I dislike spiders ,snakes and scorpions, but I am scared of Liberals and Greenies. They seem to be killing the whole world. So I could do without them

 

[tigris115]

Personally, I'm uneasy with chimpanzees.

 

[camerl2009]

Never really been much outside of Ontario only thing here that worries me is moose.