Not for the squeamish!

[AndrewH]

This post comes with a government health warning. If you have a delicate disposition, please stop reading now.

Well, for the few that remain, this event happened where we live in Greece, several seasons ago.

I was woken in the early hours by what sounded like a distant scream. I wasn't dreaming, because the dogs had heard something and had started to bark in unison. I went to the window and looked out into the blackness of the night. I then glanced across towards our rental villa and saw that almost every light in the house was on and the place was lit up like a lantern. Anyway, there was no activity outside the villa that I could detect, the dogs stopped barking, so I assumed that whatever was happening with our guests was of a "domestic" nature.

Next morning, having no idea what to expect, I paid our villa guests a friendly visit. Two rather tired looking people answered the door and one of Mrs. Guest's eyes was a bit red. They were quick to tell me the events of the previous night. The guests had been sleeping soundly in their bed, but at around 2.00 am., Mrs. Guest awoke because her eye felt itchy. She put her hand up to her eye and found herself clutching something wriggly and gangly and which turned out to be a large cricket. She dropped the creature on the floor immediately and let out a scream. She then put her hand to her eye to find that the cricket had been nibbling away at her eyelid while she slept. I should point out at this point that this variety of cricket is large, perhaps 2 inches long, bright green, and for the most part it is carnivorous.

Mr. Guest was commanded in no uncertain terms to dispose of the cricket outside, but the problem was it had neatly hidden itself and was nowhere to be found. The bedroom had to be turned upside down; the bed and the furniture moved around, looked behind and underneath; every fold in the curtains and the bed sheets had to be checked. Still no cricket. The search was extended to beyond the bedroom but with no success. On returning to the bedroom they found that the cricket had revealed himself and had attached himself to the wall. Mr. Guest was then able to do what was necessary. The whole performance took about an hour and a return to sleep proved impossible for the guests.

Mrs. Guest's wound turned out to be not too serious and a doctors visit wasn't needed - just some home medication. What did concern me was what Mrs. Guest might write in the visitors' book for all future guests to read. Guests like to write about their "adventures", but on this occasion thankfully not a word - phew.

[Casscat]

Urgh! Remind me to leave a steak beside my bed as a distraction. Surely more appealing to carnivorous insect life than my face

[annedab]

Eeeeeeewwwwwwww

[PW in Polemi]

Yikes, Andrew - that beats OH's close encounter with a cockroach into a cocked hat.

Found this on Wikipedia:
Crickets have relatively powerful jaws, and several species have been known to bite humans.

Glad your guest was OK - and even more glad for you that she kept quiet about her nocturnal visitor!

I suppose the flora and fauna is called "wildlife" for a reason - it's WILD, in all senses of the word.

[PW in Polemi]

Urgh! Remind me to leave a steak beside my bed as a distraction. Surely more appealing to carnivorous insect life than my face

Funny you should mention steak, Casscat. Before we moved out here, we were lunching al fresco with those who were about to become our neighbours. Suddenly, 2 or 3 very large hornets swooped in and buzzed the table. I am scared of wasps (stung in ear as a girl) and hornets are, to me, simply extremely large versions of wasps. So I was less than happy at their arrival. But one of the locals simply said "put that bone with a bit of meat on it at the unoccupied end of the table - that's their share and they'll leave us alone."

Guess what - it worked!

[Mouse]

Ewww! Thank god we have cats!

Cats 1 Crickets 0

Mousie
x

[SandyBeaches]

Reminds me of the time we stayed at a villa in Cyprus that my in-laws had rented. About 5 minutes after going to bed and turning out the light, I turned my head on the pillow and felt something sharp behind my ear - kind of like an injection. Anyway, after a few minutes it began to seriously hurt so I got up and made my husband get up and search for this 'huge' insect which I believed had bitten me. Eventually we found a small scorpion perched on the side of the bed. Trotted off to hospital in the middle of the night for the antidote (with squashed scorpion which we had taken along for evidence). But when we came back to the villa I would not get back into that bed until my husband and mother-in-law and virtually taken that room apart to make sure there wasn't anything else lurking there!

I started hyperventilating when I realised it was a scorpion that had stung me, but calmed down when I realised I wasn't dying and it just hurt. A lot.

[Mouse]

Scorpions in Cyprus! That's Cyprus off my list.

Mousie
x

[SandyBeaches]

Lol! Apparently it's rare and and I became a bit of a local celebrity with loads of people popping round saying 'ah, you're the lady that was stung by the scorpion.'

[tavi]

oh my god ... the man-eating cricket....that is horrendous.

[PW in Polemi]

Scorpions in Cyprus! That's Cyprus off my list.

Mousie
x

In 7 years, I've only seen 3 scorpions here - we live in an agricultural area, with the opposite side of the valley being predominantly scrubland. The first scorpion was on the drive, squashed. Never did work out whether it came in on the tyres of a friend's car, or was there alive until they arrived. The other 2 were very small and pale, about 2" long. Very easy to flatten

But you have scorpions in Ibiza, Mousie.

I found this on the web:
A REVIEW OF THE SCORPION FAUNA OF EUROPE.
Jan Ove Rein
Medical Library & Information Center
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Euscorpius balearicus Caporiacco, 1950
This species belongs to the "E. carpathicus species complex", and was previously recognized as a subspecies of E. carpathicus. E. balearicus is distributed on the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Cabrera, Ibiza & Formentera) in the Mediterranean sea, where it can be found under stones etc.

E. balearicus is small to medium sized (30 - 37 mm). Coloration is light brownish (actually some orange overtones in some specimens) with little contrasting patterns. Metasoma reduced proportionally, and unusual large pedipalps (compared to other populations of E. carpathicus). As a rule of thumb: All Euscorpius from the Balearic Islands are E. balearicus.

[SandyBeaches]

The other 2 were very small and pale, about 2" long. Very easy to flatten

I can vouch for that. A solid thwack with a flip flop did the job.

[Mouse]

No PW. I can assure you that in 18 yrs of living here I have neven once heard of a scorpion. Seriously.
Infact the tourist bumf brags that Ibiza has nothing living on it that would be harmful to man. Could always be disproved....but yet to hear of it.

Maybe you'd have to loan me a cat if I visited you

Mousie
x

[PW in Polemi]

Maybe you'd have to loan me a cat if I visited you

Mousie
x

Of course I would - you could even have ours temporarily. Learn a little about him in this thread
viewtopic.php?t=24488
However, you might have to bribe him with freshly barbecued liver - he's not too fond of people but he does eat bugs, including cicadas!

[pambon]

Well, thank goodness Sicily only boasts the viper as the most venomous animal here.

Nothing on Cyprus or Greece. (and my son wants to take me to the Greek Islands.......no way!)