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Massive dragonfly
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Professional Poster
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Theres a massive dragon fly doing dive bombs at me in the `teacher` computer room, here at a very backwoods middle school in Japan. I had a very similar one fly around in my last class. This thing is at least 6 inches lone, wih a good 5 inch wing span.
Who knew Japan had such big dragonflies, let alone evil killer ones. Maybe this one will fight Mothra next....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshuazimmerman/41313656/
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They eat bugs. They are good.
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Pretty, I love those things.
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"That's okay, I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while."
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must've evolved out of the radiation.
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coulda put a ruler or something for reference....
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Originally Posted by KeriVit
coulda put a ruler or something for reference....
Hmm... could be tricky. Dragonflies, at least the ones around these parts, don't allow anyone to even get near them before they fly off.
We had a praying mantis about 5 inches long on our porch last night. I always enjoy walking in circles around them, and watching their little heads pivot to follow me. Adds a sense of intelligence to them somehow.
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Originally Posted by KeriVit
coulda put a ruler or something for reference....
Aww dang, you beat me to it!!! It appears to be sitting on a common panel ceiling tile. The larger groove in the tiling pattern behind the upper- right wing is probably a 1/4". This means our little fly friend is only 3" long w/ wings each 1.5" in length.  No giant or evil dragon fly. I see these guys clumsily lifting and dragging throughout sunflowers here in the midwest.
...but what do I care? 
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ebuddy
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6 inches! wow.
I have a lot of family in Hawaii, and a couple of my cousins had a pretty big dragonfly laying around (outside, not in the house!!) I think it was about 4 inches.. pretty big, but this one here seems to be out and out huge! (of course, this is all assuming that his measurement is honest and accurate--like others said, he didn't but a reference thing there.)
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I swear, it was really like 6 inches long! Plus I wasn't going to grab it or nothing... they bite.
Plus he's hanging vertically from the tile, not flat against it. I'll try and take another picture if I come across one.
A teacher at school later caught a Praying Matas and put it in a plastic bag to take home. It was quite large. I love Japan.
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JoshuaZ, are you studying in Japan? How's the quality of life over there? Aside from massive dragonflies.
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Nice picture, thank you for sharing. The dragon fly is a fearless creature. 
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Dragonflies are harmless....
Now if you see one of these
start running!
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
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Originally Posted by Scifience
Dragonflies are harmless....
Now if you see one of these
JPG
start running!
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
Not to be confused with one of these;
Quite harmless. 
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Ah, dragonflies! It'd be really interesting to see a six inch one. They're excellent insects. Whenever I'm out canoeing or boating at cottages, they always seem to like to tag along and follow me.
However, if you need it killed, I'd suggest looking up Mothra's number. 
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(Last edited by Tyler McAdams; Sep 8, 2005 at 09:38 PM.
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Moderator Join Date: Mar 2004
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Originally Posted by Scifience
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
If they call mukade that, what do they call normal centipedes?
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Originally Posted by Scifience
Dragonflies are harmless....
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
So why in the hell is someone holding it?
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"That's okay, I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while."
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Originally Posted by Scifience
I've seen one of those... and run I did! <shiver>
I got back from Japan a couple weeks ago (visiting relatives.) Take a look at these beauts I snapped...
 
Nothing to show scale, but trust me they were large. I hate spiders, but at the same time I'm fascinated by them.
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Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon
So why in the hell is someone holding it?
Most likely because Japan has nuts that keep poisonous insects as pets just like people here do. You can find pictures of people holding black widows too.
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Why did Gawd create so many insects?
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_,.
a solitary firefly flies at nite
into the darkness an endless flight
a million flashes of delight.
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Forum Regular
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Originally Posted by JoshuaZ
Theres a massive dragon fly doing dive bombs at me in the `teacher` computer room, here at a very backwoods middle school in Japan. I had a very similar one fly around in my last class. This thing is at least 6 inches lone, wih a good 5 inch wing span.
Who knew Japan had such big dragonflies, let alone evil killer ones. Maybe this one will fight Mothra next....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshuazimmerman/41313656/
It sounds to me like you've never been to northern Ontario  The blue-bottles there are big, but very stunning (I think in the southern US they are called blue-ringed dancers? but in ON, they are bigger). And I remember green-eyed dragonflies at least a couple of inches long (this is Kirkland Lake area I'm referring to - Sesikinika Lake in particular). Of course we also had blackflies - talk about hell in a small package!!
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Originally Posted by FulcrumPilot
Why did Gawd create so many insects?
according to my christian friend they were created by evil
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Originally Posted by Scifience
Dragonflies are harmless....
Now if you see one of these
big ass centipede image
start running!
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
Few insects can really creep me out the way Centipedes can <shudder>
Dragonflies, OTOH, are awesome. I love when one lands on me and just sits there, chillin'
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Four legs good, eight legs bad.
Four legs good, eight legs bad.
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Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
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Originally Posted by Oisín
If they call mukade that, what do they call normal centipedes?
多足類 is the famliy. This Link added with pics -and a short description- of other centipedes with their common Japanese names.
Technical name is げじげじ
----
The dragonfly in Joshua's photo is probably a -beautiful and harmless (in spite of its name)- オニヤンマ (Scientific name ( Anotogaster sieboldii))
(Last edited by lurkalot; Sep 9, 2005 at 12:24 AM.
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Originally Posted by Scifience
What did the centipede in the photo catch? Is it hand fed a roach (ゴキブリ)? Does it know not to bite the hand that feeds it?
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Professional Poster
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Originally Posted by Aiglos
JoshuaZ, are you studying in Japan? How's the quality of life over there? Aside from massive dragonflies.
I`m an English teacher with the JET program over here in the city of Fukuyama in Hiroshima prefecture, I was an exchange student in Osaka last year as well.
The quality of life is really good. Its a fun place to live and in my opinion, cheaper then the US in many ways. I`m in a rather large city, half a million, so I actually don`t have an bug issues in my apartment. Its just that I teach at some countryside schools every now and then, and some of the bugs are quite large. I can`t say they bother me at all, just really surprised me. Especially when one starts zooming around your head.
The only downside is that being 6 foot 2 inches tall makes buying clothing difficult most of the time. Not impossible, but difficult. I also hit my head on doorways. Good time.
If you want to know tons about Japan, read my weblog. Way too much info to be found there. http://www.joshuazimmerman.com
I saw another massive dragonfly at a different school today, after the teachers laughed at me for talking about the big one I saw yesterday. One of the Japanese teachers tried to remove it from the school she freaked out a bit.
All of the new JET teachers were warned about the big centipedes and how bad they can be. Especially if you end up being alergic to them. I do have some friends who live in remote areas who do tell tails of giant roaches, centipedes, and spiders. I`ve only had one roach in my place, and he was small.
I do often see small lizards running around, little geckos maybe. The cats around here have fun chasing them.
I really need to start taking my camera with me to school, my cell phone takes such bad photos.
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Moderator Join Date: Mar 2004
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Originally Posted by lurkalot
But that's just myriapods, no? The Chilopoda class must have a different name?
I find it sort of odd that 百足 is a specific kind of centipede, rather than just the 'standard' form. In Chinese, for instance, 百足 is just your standard, average centipede (or any other Chilopod, as in English), and 多足类 is myriapods.
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Originally Posted by Oisín
But that's just myriapods, no? The Chilopoda class must have a different name?
I find it sort of odd that 百足 is a specific kind of centipede, rather than just the 'standard' form. In Chinese, for instance, 百足 is just your standard, average centipede (or any other Chilopod, as in English), and 多足类 is myriapods.
Yes that's correct.
I had to "Google" this because I'm not at all familiar with the classification of these critters, in either Japanese or English. From the Wiki link you can see that Mukade are 唇脚綱 (=Chilopoda class). 多足 = Myriapoda.
A tree in English with the Latin and Japanese scientific names; Arthropoda
The second link I posted after an edit above had the names of some of the different Mukade in katakana but you are correct that there are kanji for the different mukade as well.
For イッスンムカデ (Issun mukade) for example the kanji is 一寸百足。(Which, according to the author of the second website I linked above, would be known as Bothropolys rugosus. By his real friends.)
It looks like kanji are rarely used however and katakana is more common to write the name of individual species in Japanese.
So Scolopendra subspinipes is トビズムカデ and Scolopocryptops rubiginosus is セスジアカムカデ in Japan. I don't know which particular mukade is in the picture but you are correct that this name alone would not properly identify him. There needs to be an other name in front of the ムカデ (= mukade = 百足) part.
(Last edited by lurkalot; Sep 10, 2005 at 12:32 AM.
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Originally Posted by JoshuaZ
I swear, it was really like 6 inches long! Plus I wasn't going to grab it or nothing... they bite.
Plus he's hanging vertically from the tile, not flat against it. I'll try and take another picture if I come across one.
A teacher at school later caught a Praying Matas and put it in a plastic bag to take home. It was quite large. I love Japan.
Can't get Photobucket to work and I got some good Mantis pics today.
Bummer.
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Professional Poster
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Originally Posted by Scifience
Dragonflies are harmless....
Now if you see one of these
start running!
(In case you didn't know, that's a mukade - 百足 - a venomous centipede native to Japan.)
One of the teachers at a school I go to on a little island was attacked last night by a baby centipede. He has a very large and ugly looking bruse thing where he was bit. While that isn`t too interesting, what is interesting is that appearently the school occasionally has giant ones running around. While I love the view here, giant bugs (other then mothra) freak me out.
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i took this one saturday. she is feeding. measures 1" across in this position. web center is five feet up; web from top of patio chair to bottom of patio umbrella.
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imagine walking into it's web and having it tangled up on your face.
yuck.
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Grizzled Veteran
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Originally Posted by Albert Pujols
imagine walking into it's web and having it tangled up on your face.
yuck.
LOL i hate when that happens!
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Japan also has the biggest ravens I've ever seen. Their "Caw" sounds like a human's voice. I swear I must've turned around a hundred times thinking someone yelled "Paul!". Just the ravens.
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Professional Poster
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Originally Posted by paul w
Japan also has the biggest ravens I've ever seen. Their "Caw" sounds like a human's voice. I swear I must've turned around a hundred times thinking someone yelled "Paul!". Just the ravens.
I just keep having fears that one of the big ravens will claw out my eyes. I see the way they gang up on trash bags and random bits of food. They`re quite big and rather mean looking.
I seriously wonder if they ever carry off small children.
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Mac Elite
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Originally Posted by lurkalot
多足類 is the famliy. This Link added with pics -and a short description- of other centipedes with their common Japanese names.
Technical name is げじげじ
----
The dragonfly in Joshua's photo is probably a -beautiful and harmless (in spite of its name)- オニヤンマ (Scientific name ( Anotogaster sieboldii))
I always see these guys in dirty places like public restrooms:
http://www.insects.jp/kon-gejigeji.htm
nasty!
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Moderator Join Date: Apr 2001
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Originally Posted by paul w
Japan also has the biggest ravens I've ever seen. Their "Caw" sounds like a human's voice. I swear I must've turned around a hundred times thinking someone yelled "Paul!". Just the ravens.
What's the difference between a Crow and a Raven? A crow has an extra tail feather that is called a 'pinion'. So really, it's just a matter of a pinion.
We've got giant ravens in Alaska, too. They frequently "play" with the bald eagles, which the eagles don't seem to dig.
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Originally Posted by Tyler McAdams
I've seen a reconstruction of one of those. No kidding, it looks like a remote controlled helicopter or something. Massive !
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Professional Poster
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Hmm... apparently my school has these giant centipedes every now and then.... hmm...
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Professional Poster
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How about a giant horent nest in one of my school buildings?
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Mac Elite
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These nests were atleast 3 feet long.
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Now those are nice nests!
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Here's a little sucker I shot the other day down in Burleigh Heads, Australia:
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I guess if you are in a rural parts of Japan you should expect these things...
I will be sure to stay in tokyo when I visit O_o
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Professional Poster
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Originally Posted by Naz
I guess if you are in a rural parts of Japan you should expect these things...
I will be sure to stay in tokyo when I visit O_o
I'm quite glad I live in an actual city (400,000 people), but several of my schools take me out into the countryside. Which is actually rather refreshing, but for living situations, I'd rather be bug free and near a lot of good stores and bars.
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