After a recent post about dobsonflies, my friend Conrad phoned to confirm that these insects do indeed bite.
Some years ago, Conrad was camping with friends in Arkansas. He woke to a stinging pain in his hand. The flashlight showed a dobsonfly about four inches long clamped to the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Except that he'd never seen a dobsonfly, so it actually appeared to be some denizen of Hell. Conrad pried it off and attacked it with his hunting knife. The action must have been pretty wild, because Conrad immediately lost track of the thing. A careful search with flashlights revealed neither the living creature nor any body parts.
He didn't get much sleep the rest of the night.
Just FYI, only the females bite (the one in that picture is a female btw). The males have larger mandibles but they're for show only, the muscles are too weak to bring the mandibles together with enough force to break human skin.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I said in the earlier post, but Conrad ain't buying it.
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