I live in North Carolina, the South. We have a lot of weird bugs and critters down here, but today I saw something I have never seen before!
I run a small CAD (Computer Aided Design) Drafting & Design Business from my home. I specialize in Fire Alarm System Design, and converting Hand Drawings to CAD format. When work is slow I help a friend build decks, paint, and do minor carpentry work. Since I'm the "helper", I get to do the dirty work, like crawl under the house!
If you have any experience building decks, you know that the deck has to be secured to the house with bolts, which means someone (me) has to crawl under the house to stick the bolts through the holes. Down here in NC, we don't have basements, we have Crawl Spaces. Most of the time you have to crawl around on your hands and knees, but sometimes you get lucky and find a house that you can walk under part of it.
I'm pretty brave, but you don't just crawl around under a house down here in the South, you crawl around slowly and cautiously because poisonous snakes and other critters like spiders, also crawl around under houses. When crawling under houses located in the country, you look for Copperheads, Rattle Snakes, and Cottonmouths. If your working near lakes you look for Water Moccasins. These snakes are aggressive, they will chase you, and yes the myth is true; they bite under water! The Spiders you have to watch out for are Black Widows (which I have been bitten by), and the dreaded Brown Recluse, whose venom is so toxic, the bite rots the skin making an ugly hole.
As I crawled my way under the house to put a washer and nut on the bolts, I started seeing all these really weird looking bugs, big bugs! At first I thought they were spiders because they have round bodies and big legs like a spider, but as I shined my flash light on them, I realized they weren't spiders at all, but some sort of a Cricket! They really freaked me out!
Does anyone know what these things are? My buddy and I think they may be some new Species, or maybe even a Mutation.
Thanks.