The wife wasn't happy to see this on her car door and I was happy it didn't go for my neck as I tried to take pics. Maybe a couple inches long, I see wings, no obvious weapons but a visual message "you best move along".



He was moving so hard to get, this toothy structure on his back adds to the WTF.

It looks like a "stink bug" to me. Poke it couple of times with your finger then smell your finger (just to be sure ).

My first guess was a stink bug, but an app on my wife's phone says Wheel bug aka Assassin bug. Who knows.....

It's nothing like the stink bugs we have here in S.E. Michigan.

quote:

Originally posted by sig229-SAS:
... an app on my wife's phone says Wheel bug aka Assassin bug. Who knows.....

I'd say that's what it is: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whee...iax=images&ia=images

Assassin bug of sorts.
Ah I see it's a wheel bug.

Yessir, wheel bug. Watch out, they bite

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
Poke it couple of times with your finger then smell your finger (just to be sure ).

Ha! That's what she said!

assasin bug,

I have been tagged by these fuskers more times than I can count. I personally think they are much worse than velvet ants.

Their bite hangs around for months on end.

Yes, I concur. If you get stung it is worse than a wasp/hornet or scorpion. Ask me how I know. And the poster above is right. It took about three months for the welt to go away. Nasty little fuckers with their flesh-dissolving venom they inject into you.

Well, shit.
Thanks. Like I said, nothing about the way it looks says let's be friends.

quote:

Originally posted by Unishot:
Ask me how I know...

And DSgrouse too. How did you guys come to get bit by these things? Bad luck or wrong places to be?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ripley,

tall grass, fencing, thick vegetation. Right through clothes. The two most painful times for me it was just above the ankle. Thin skin, little room for swelling.

It isn't a zap like a besting more like a bite from a horsefly/deerfly or mosquito. Golf ball-sized area that is painful for months. You'll regret taking a hot shower with it.

Definately assasin bug. Stink bugs backs are shaped like a shield. Some stink bugs do stink and some do not. Went to take my wife to an eye doctor appointment yesterday and the outside of my house was freakin covered with stink bugs. i've never seen so many at one time

The way the wheel bug hunts is that it creeps up on its prey, and takes that long stinger looking proboscis thing on the front of it’s head and stabs the victim. Then it injects a flesh dissolving venom that also paralyzes the prey. After a bit, it sucks out the insides with the same “stinger” and then goes about it’s way.

I was in a golf cart sitting still and it landed on my belly, And immediately “stung” me. It hurt so bad that I swatted it down to the bottom the golf cart, and I got a close look at it. I even took a picture of it, Because I hadn’t seen it before. Like I said. Nasty little fuckers!

quote:

Originally posted by Unishot:
The way the wheel bug hunts is that it creeps up on its prey, and takes that long stinger looking proboscis thing on the front of it’s head and stabs the victim. Then it injects a flesh dissolving venom that also paralyzes the prey. After a bit, it sucks out the insides with the same “stinger” and then goes about it’s way.

I was in a golf cart sitting still and it landed on my belly, And immediately “stung” me. It hurt so bad that I swatted it down to the bottom the golf cart, and I got a close look at it. I even took a picture of it, Because I hadn’t seen it before. Like I said. Nasty little fuckers!

I carry an epi pen for bee stings. I got zapped 9 times by mud daubbers this summer. It left a golf ball sized welt that was gone in two weeks.

I will take a bee sting, even the velvet ants (cow killer) that I have been stung by over the assassins bug any day.

An article I read about assassin bugs describes them as shy and retiring but you guys seem to have run across pretty hostile examples, attacking without provocation. I caught this guy in a cup and threw him in the woods not knowing he should be dead.

I'm pretty sure it was one of these I ran across several years ago. I'm working on my VW one summer evening, wearing shorts when shorts were really short. The ugliest bug ever landed on my inner thigh, right at the pant leg opening. I froze at the sight of it, thinking it might run for the cover up my pant leg. In that moment's hesitation, he flew off clumsily. I'll never know for sure but

I'll run across cowkillers in the yard a few times a summer and worry about upsetting one if I roust it while I pull crabgrass or something. I've never been hit by one but with a name like "cowkiller", I know they're there. And now frickin' wheel bugs, jeesh.

I hope that utterly insane show "Kings of Pain" comes back and they take on one of these.

I really should know better than to click a bug ID thread started by someone named Ripley.