Totally awesome. I'm a big fan of insects and crazy mountain islands. This story was a big win.

Hrmm, so the debate for the islanders is rats who spread disease and make a mess of things, or giant insects that they can use as fishing bait. I'd take the insects.

s oawesome, though i think those insects are scarey as hell too....

@Alderian, do the rats spread disease? i thought that was a dark age urban myth?

@ora - no, the fleas that live on the rats spread the disease.

what disease?

well, the plague of course lol

Can someone explain to me how killing a bunch of rats so that they can be replaced with giant insects makes any sense.

Ugh. I realize they're wonderful and part of the ecosystem or whatever.
But also, I'm Canadian. Bugs here don't get bigger than a centimeter across and they all die in the winter. Those HUGE stick insects are just too big. I refuse. I don't know what I'm refusing but no, that's just not allowed. They're going to give me nightmares. Rats suck because they did not manage to completely wipe out those monstrosities. Ugh.

From the water, they'd seen a few patches of vegetation that just might support walking sticks. So, they boated over. ("Swimming would have been much easier," Carlile said, "but there are too many sharks.") - Also something you would not find in the waters off of Canada. I just don't understand how people can live in most parts of the world. NATURE WANTS TO KILL YOU, AND GROSS YOU OUT, AND JUST GENERALLY BE HORRIBLE. Come to Canada, where the worst nature has to offer can be beaten by a good parka and a pair of long johns under your pants.

I always loved that the people of the time killed the one thing that could have had a major impact on the plague because of a superstition, the cats. It just made things worse because the cats could have killed the rats keeping the rat population in control.

I wonder why the fleas that live on cats don't carry plague?

Really, mafia? No bears or wolves in Canada?

@draug, you took the words out of my keyboard....

And let's not forget the Yeti!

The UK is the place to go for dangerous animals. We have wasps and bees that can really hurt! And scorpians as big as a grown man's fingernails! And fierce wild cats roaming free in Scotland that are the size of... erm... cats!

And don't get me started on the squirrels...

Not in urban areas!

For the record though I suspect Octavious is right. The UK is totally acceptable in terms not having animals that just should not be.

Also be fair, a bear or a wolf might be dangerous, and quite scary, but when you look at one your skin doesn't crawl and you don't think "Dear God, that is a thing that should not exist outside of hell!" You just think "HOLY SHIT A BEAR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Canada has killer mooses too!

Mynd you, mööse bites Kan be pretti nasti...

@Mafia -
"Come to Canada, where the worst nature has to offer can be beaten by a good parka and a pair of long johns under your pants. "

" a bear or a wolf might be dangerous, and quite scary, but when you look at one your skin doesn't crawl"

Well which is it? Your first statement essentially says warm clothing can beat a bear or wolf. The bug is harmless and, if you don't have entomophobia, actually kind of a cool walking stick.

" a bear or a wolf might be dangerous, and quite scary, but when you look at one your skin doesn't crawl"

As opposed to that bear or wolf eating your skin.

OK yes. If you stick to the urban parts of Canada the worst nature has to offer is very cold weather, which can be beaten with warm clothing.

If you live in the wild, sure there are bears and wolves, but you know what makes the wild the wild? The fact that people don't live there.

The second statement, the one about a bear not causing your skin to crawl was a side point, not an actual argument for why bears are less dangerous than stick insects.

I don't know that I have entomophobia, I'm really OK with most insects most of the time, it's just when they reach sizes that are a little outside what I'm used to that I start to freak out. And those stick insects DEFINITELY qualify. Other things that qualify? Tarantulas, Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and the Amazonian giant centipede.

Maybe there's a nature scene on Mafia'a boyfriend's butt plug, but that's where Mafia's proximity to nature begins and ends.

Don't forget Samsquanches!

@ maple - Ew, no. But also yeah. Nature sucks.

Wow is it my limited knowledge of the English language or did mapleleaf just make a comment that was so insulting it makes TC look like a choir boy?

Tarantulas aren't insects. They are arachnoids. :-)

And they are cool as are the giant scorpions (the bigger the scorpion the less dangerous in so far as poisons and toxins).

I've never understood how centipedes and millipedes are insects, or if they are some other type of bug. I mean, a butterfly is an insect, so I guess a many legged catepillar that becomes the butterfly is one, but I've never heard of a centipede or millipede changing.

And mafia, come to Cincinnati where the worse nature has to throw at you (in the urban areas) can be handled with a decent four wheel drive vehicle and a heater. I have a snowplow, wieghts, and chains on my lawn tractor for clearing the drive way (80x12 or almost 1000 ft2). And I don't need long johns. Just a leather jacket (or my wool overcoat), scarf, gloves, and earmuffs or a hat (sometimes both) is all you need for the cold. That or a garage at each end of the trip, remote start, and a good heater in your car.

Actually they're arachnids, not arachnoids.
And centipedes and millipedes aren't insects either, they're Myriapods.
But the point is, arachnids, myriapods, and insects are all arthropods, and once they pass a certain size they all give me the screaming heebie-jeebies (except centipedes which freak me out regardless of size). Crustaceans are also arthropods, but lobsters and crabs don't bother me at all. Maybe it's because I know they're delicious, while I suspect tarantulas are not. Or perhaps it's because they live in the ocean. I dunno.

...But also, it's Cincinnati.

"Wow is it my limited knowledge of the English language or did mapleleaf just make a comment that was so insulting it makes TC look like a choir boy?" - He tried.

o and i are next door to each other. I just accidently did a finger brush over the o as I hit the i.

Ah I see. That does make perfect sense. Although to be fair, arachnoid does sound like the sort thing someone would write by accident.

@red

You haven't met maple before? He's the site's Troll Emeritus.

@'And fierce wild cats roaming free in Scotland that are the size of... erm... cats!' +1

Mafia, how do you know that these stick insect don't taste like lobster? They are nicknamed tree lobsters after all.

The same way I know prairie oysters don't taste like oysters.

Oysters taste like front bottoms (both benefit from a squirt of lemon juice).

Anyway isn't aracnoid a spider without passport or driving licence?

Viva Krulwich

Interesting read, thanks for sharing :) I don't think reintroduction to the island is really much of an option though. Rats are responsible for the extinction of a lot of new world species. They just breed so fast and eat almost anything. To reintroduce the insects you'd first need to totally eliminate the rats.

Perhaps first introducing snakes to eat the rats..? Followed up by some mongoose...

No, an arachnoid is a robotic spider. Part arachnid and part android.