Earwigs are mostly nocturnal and often hide in small, moist crevices during the day, and are active at night, feeding on a wide variety of insects and plants. Damage to foliage, flowers, and various crops is commonly blamed on earwigs.
American yellow sac spider is a rather small pale yellow species that can be found living in the foliage of forests and gardens but also can inhabit human homes. These spiders are venomous and capable of biting humans. A bite begins with moderate pain followed by itching. Symptoms usually resolve within 7–10 days. However, the spider rarely bites (with females biting more often than wandering males), and the venom rarely produces more than local symptoms.
The striped bark scorpion is perhaps the most frequently encountered scorpion in the U.S. Thousands of people are stung yearly while barefoot or accidentally making contact with the scorpion in houses and other man-made structures. While a sting is very rarely deadly, it is painful and causes localized swelling.
The American grass spider
Aptly named, odorous house ants are small dark-colored ants that may produce an unpleasant rotten, coconut-like smell when crushed. More commonly referred to as sugar ants, these pests are frequently found in kitchens and bathrooms.
The western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus) can be found all along the west coast of the United States. They are small in size, and their physical features are related to the deer tick species. They are responsible for transmitting many bacterial diseases such as Lyme disease, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, and Anaplasmosis.
This photograph depicted a dorsal view of an adult female western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, which has been shown to transmit the zoonotic infection human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE), in the western United States. The small scutum, or tough, chitinous dorsal abdominal plate, does not cover its entire abdomen, thereby, allowing the abdomen to expand many times when this tick ingests its blood meal, and which identified this specimen as a female. The four pairs of jointed legs, places these ticks in the Phylum Arthropoda, and the Class Arachnida.
HGE represents the second recognized ehrlichial infection of humans in the United States, and was first described in 1994. The name for the species that causes HGE has not been formally proposed, but this species is closely related, or identical to the veterinary pathogens Ehrlichia equi, and Ehrlichia phagocytophilia. HGE is transmitted by the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, and the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, in the United States.Patients with ehrlichiosis generally visit a physician in their first week of illness, following an incubation period of about 5-10 days after the tick bite. Initial symptoms generally include fever, headache, malaise, and muscle aches. Other signs and symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough, joint pains, confusion, and occasionally rash.
They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields and forests. Orb Weavers have eight similar eyes, hairy or spiny legs, and no stridulating organs.
Fire ants often attack small animals and can kill them. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants bite only to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom called solenopsin. For humans, this is a painful sting, a sensation similar to what one feels when burned by fire (hence the name), and the after-effects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive people.
Aptly named, odorous house ants are small dark-colored ants that may produce an unpleasant rotten, coconut-like smell when crushed. More commonly referred to as sugar ants, these pests are frequently found in kitchens and bathrooms.
