My phobia is Box Jellyfish, there's just something about an animal that is so small yet can kill you within two minutes that just freaks me out. Luckily they live nowhere near I am, although I was a little freaked out when I traveled to Australia!
I have a very specific frog phobia for the members of the Pelophylax genus. For the longest time I walked a mile around them if I spotted one and couldn't stand their noises when I was biking to school. Tho this phobia is not as big anymore as it used to be when I was 10/15 I still kinda am creeped out by them if I suddenly see one jump or pop up. I also used to have a massive snail phobia. I still don't like being around most snails.
As a child I was terrified of the call of the Peacock. Not Peacocks, just their call. Visits to Sewerby Hall Zoo and the Museum Gardens in York used to scare the daylights out of me.
I have two unordinary phobias of mine. The first is Anatidaephobia, but only the phobia of swans. They just seem very aggressive, and make that stupid hiss. I just feel like swans will attack me sometime in life. The second is a phobia of stonefish. It is just that they can kill you in an hour and are camouflaged, and I don't go far in the ocean because of that.
You'd have to go pretty damn far into the ocean to encounter one as the nearest ones to the British Isles are in the northern Red Sea and (due to migration via the Suez Canal) possibly the extreme eastern Mediterranean.
Used to have a thing called the North Las Vegas Special. First you have the family pet die in the back yard in the summer and not in no shaded area neither, right out in the open under the sun. Then you wait 2, 3, 4 days before you call the friendly veterinarian. When you picked up the carcass the entire underside of the skin would remain on the ground, covered wall to wall with maggots. My only revenge is I would leave the pelt and 80% of the maggots. The maggots wouldn't bother me but the dead smell would linger in my trunk for a week. And you thought people did things at zoos that annoy you.
When I was a little kid I was very afraid of dogs, but I have since overcome that fear. I don't have a dog, but because everyone in my family knows how much I like animals, I have become the default dog sitter.
I have an aunt who is absolutely terrified of them. Being in England, they're not an easy animal to avoid!
Unlike most people, I actually enjoy being around rats, mice, snakes, lizards, spiders, etc. The only animal I'm afraid of is these: I also used to have a fear of frogs, small lizards, and butterflies when I was younger, but I got over them.
I have phobia for caterpillar. When I was a kid, in my grandmother's house, there was a very large green caterpillar (the size of a palm). suddenly the caterpillar was chasing me. Everytime I see a picture or a video of a caterpillar, I always felt like something was crawling on my body.
I've got Cnidophobia, which encompasses Stinging Insects and Needles but I also am afraid of Stingrays. My phobias aren't bad, they are downright crippiling, I struggle to go into the bush, the sea and many other areas due to these phobias, they range in severity. Bees, I've half overcome this fear as I can deal with small groups of bees but anything more than 20 and I start shaking, hives make me go into panic attacks. Wasps: Like bees but more aggresive. Those two are somewhat minor compared to the other two.... The lesser of the Big Two are Stingrays, I love stingrays in Zoos, Aquariums, from a Pier, from a Boat but that isn't the problem. It's while I'm in the sea, down here in Southern Victoria, stingrays are very common especially in water below knee deep, both in the bays and the ocean. There are only a few species of ray in this part of Victoria, Eagle rays (which i've never seen), Stingarees which are small rays but are not common, Fiddler rays, shovelnose rays and skates which are all harmless, there are black stingrays which are rare but the problem is the Smooth or Short Tailed Stingray (Bathytoshia brevicaudata) They are the largest species of stingray in the world ranging in size from suitcases to beds, move fairly quickly and wont be afraid to lash out if stepped on. Generally though they are non aggressive. This phobia stems from an encounter with a Smooth Stingray at Year 6 camp on Phillip Island. I was wading inbetween knee and ankle depth and suddenly this massive shape brushes up against my leg, I look down see a 1.5 metre disk radius Smooth Stingray and run for the hills. I do know that if I get stung by a stingray I'm not going to die because it would almost certainly be in the leg, and the infection is worse than the venom. These days I'm scared to even go into the sea let alone Smiths Beach. Although stingrays are nothing compared to this Or even worse THIS I'll talk about them in another post.
I wouldn't really classify it as a phobia but I feel a very strong and visceral disgust for chimpanzees and when I see them (or hear the sound of them) in zoos etc I feel sort of nauseated by these apes (that isn't to say I don't support their conservation or welfare though). Once again, not really a phobia, but something that I do feel particularly fearful / paranoid of and especially when I'm doing fieldwork is kissing bugs and even the prospect of getting chagas.
I would like to say I don’t have a phobia about any kind of animal, but I did have one experience which bordered on the phobic. I have kept plenty of Phasmida species in the past, large and small, and know that other than American Walking Sticks they are harmless. Then, in Dominica, I was in a bedroom with a long (8 inch plus) stick sitting across the light switch; I couldn’t and didn’t move it even though my rational brain was telling me there was no problem!
What makes American Walking Sticks somewhat dangerous? Never heard of any reason why and some brief searching turned up nothing on the matter.
Walking sticks in general are harmless to humans as they are not known to bite. However some species have spikes on their legs which can prick you if handled carelessly. Other species can spray an acidic compound from glands on the back of its thorax when threatened by predators.
It is the defensive spray I was referring to; there are contrasting statements about it, but it does seem that it is at the least potentially irritating and , if it gets in the eyes, blinding for a period of time. Anisomorpha buprestoides is the species that has been most studied.
My phobia is for leopard seals. They're terrifying. Give me all the spiders, snakes, roaches, and rats you want - I don't mind! Just don't let any leopard seals get close to me.
