As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?

I'd like to know what age you did it, and if you still do it.

I burned more than a few ants with a magnifying glass when I was a kid, however I have since repented, and now just ignore them...or step on them.

Since you're going to discuss Ant torture you might as well include a hint of Pixar's "Ant Bully" (http://www2.warnerbros.com/antbully/), from what very small piece of information I read it's all about a boy who was cruel to ants and well... lets just say he ends up getting a taste of his own medicine like all Bad Bully's should.

I think most people will mess with ants, It's in our primative nature to mess with them, however we no longer see it appetising to prod sticks down their mounds and then lick the ants off the stick for nutrition, so we have to find something else to do with them.

although some people do eat chocolate coated ants still.

I heard someone say its pretty common, I just want to see if that is true.

I burned more than a few ants with a magnifying glass when I was a kid, however I have since repented, and now I just ignore them...or step on them.
Same here.

Why did all you guys burn ants? What gave you the idea?

Why did all you guys burn ants? What gave you the idea?
This is a good question with no easy answer. We also used to catch bugs and throw them into spider's webs to watch the spider in action. Then there was always the fun of swatting flies out of mid air (still do that from time to time) and unceremoniously removing their wings too.

I see I have had a very protected childhood.

The only bug torture I indulged in was catching dragonflies, tying them to a string and "walking" them around while they flew.

i used to own a boa constrictor. i loved watching that snake eat it's food.

i used to own a boa constrictor. i loved watching that snake eat it's food.
Me too! Not a boa, a red rat snake.

I see I have had a very protected childhood.

The only bug torture I indulged in was catching dragonflies, tying them to a string and "walking" them around while they flew.
That sounds like fun! I now feel deprived of a great childhood experience.

I've killed quite a few ants. The one time I burned them was with white gas poured all over a meat ant mound. The rolling flame wave wiped them all out, then we plugged their hole with gum and pitched the tent. No sense in having meat ants crawling all over us.

Lots of trying to get them to release different phermones though. Put some sugar out, smash a few, scare a few, wait for others to arrive, etc. Also, throwing a log full of termites on top of an ant mound is awesome.

I've killed quite a few ants. The one time I burned them was with white gas poured all over a meat ant mound. The rolling flame wave wiped them all out, then we plugged their hole with gum and pitched the tent. No sense in having meat ants crawling all over us.

Lots of trying to get them to release different phermones though. Put some sugar out, smash a few, scare a few, wait for others to arrive, etc. Also, throwing a log full of termites on top of an ant mound is awesome.
Cool!

i fed mine about once a week.
it was pretty slick how it would strike and squeeze it's prey untill it was dead.
it always managed to swallow it's food from the head first.
i fed mine mice with the occasional frog.

i fed mine about once a week.
it was pretty slick how it would strike and squeeze it's prey untill it was dead.
it always managed to swallow it's food from the head first.
i fed mine mice with the occasional frog.
Yep. Exactly.

And I only did it for a short while, made sure the knot was easy to remove.

I'm sure all of them were traumatised, but none of them died.

And I was little, maybe eight, but I still feel bad about it.

And I only did it for a short while, made sure the knot was easy to remove.

I'm sure all of them were traumatised, but none of them died.
So you left a cultural legacy of torture to propagate throughout some species of Anisoptera? At least we put an end to thier suffering right off. How cruel you are.

Hmm the thread seems to have progressed quite a bit while I was thinking.

So you left a cultural legacy of torture to propagate throughout some species of Anisoptera? At least we put an end to thier suffering right off. How cruel you are.

They always come in droves during the monsoon. They have translucent wings and iridescent bodies. I love the sound they make with their wings. So beautiful.

The one time I burned them was with white gas poured all over a meat ant mound.
i remember doing something similar to a bunch of yellowjackets.
i was mowing my grass when i ran over their mound, needless to say i was stung about 12-15 times before i could get away from them.
later that nigh i hit on the gasoline idea.
i went out there about midnight with about a pint of gas, upturned the can on their hill and lit it off. afew of them tried to fly out but their wings were burned off in the process. after the gas burned itself out i dug down about a foot or so to get the rest.

Hmm so its not just ants huh?

I used to know these boys in my neighborhood; one time they tied a firecracker to the tail of a stray dog and set it off. Poor thing! Just kept running.

I was about 11 years old and I taped a lizard to a rocket prior to launch in the backyard.

Nice.

We had a yellow jacket nest in our attic, so of course I wasn't allowed to use fire. We were doing a bunch of carpentry up there that season and the hammers were making the yellow jackets upset. I went up there, commando like, and set off a bug bomb (some sort of aersol can that fills a room with insecticide) grenade-like right next to their nest. They came buzzing out, only to get gassed by the jet of poison gushing right into their hive.

Score one for humanity.

I was about 11 years old and I taped a lizard to a rocket prior to launch in the backyard.
i bet that lizard freaked out.
did you retrieve the rocket?

I was about 11 years old and I taped a lizard to a rocket prior to launch in the backyard.
Oh! I almost forgot. I used to launch bees in the payload tube of model rockets. Sometimes they made it...

Killed lots of ants. I still enjoy the memory of the burning chiton of their exoskeletons. I still smell that smell at times which I don't think comes from burning chiton every once and a while, but it brings back fond childhood memories.

Why did I do it? Because it was fun. It was something to do. It was killing something. The idea of killing something was definitely part of the fascination. I did the same sort of shit with frogs with my buddies when I was a kid. We played golf with frogs with hockey sticks. We'd see how far we could smack them around. lol. Good times. I would say I was fairly competent at killing frogs.

But when I did that stuff, I was something like 10 years old. It was fun boy stuff.

I am 21 and I still burn ants. If I see one of those guys in my truck, I'll get out my lighter and torch him. My friends will trap a roach in a container and take a blow-torch to it and heat up the inside.

I could never hurt things when I was little. Even today - unless they're some disgusting, disease-ridden insect like a fly - I can't kill bugs.

I liked to take food to the little ants that lived on small dirt area of our neighbor's lawn, next to our driveway. I'd watch how they worked together to carry a huge crumb back to their hole, and subsequently squeeze it down. I got pleasure from providing for them - I felt like I was making them the richest ant colony in all the land. I had to give up the hobby, though - the neighbors didn't appreciate the hoard of ants on their property too much.

Actually, I lied. In the sandbox, I'd cover individual ants up with sand and waited till they pushed their way out. But if it took too long I'd usually uncover them.

Something about hurting a poor little creature that was just going about it's daily business is off-putting to me.

ok :)

I have never had a problem with killing bugs that were in my house or near it, nor do I have a problem with dissecting and otherwise examining their dead bodies, but I never have been cruel to them, besides once or twice cutting a worm apart to test its capacity to live as two distinct beings. I also recall once pulling the legs off a daddy long legs.

But no, I have never enjoyed killing anything for the sake of killing it, and I will not save a creature once it is in my house. But I see no necessity in, as Falling Skyward say, hurting a creature that is just going about its daily business.

No, I did not burn ants! Who's going around saying that I did? Was it you, Billy? Or was it Invert? I'm going crazy! You're all against me! Leave me alone!

:p

Actually, I don't remember. I burned things with a magnifying glass but I don't remember doing it to any insects or living things other than plants.

Actually, I don't remember. I burned things with a magnifying glass but I don't remember doing it to any insects or living things other than plants.

I also used to convince my sisters that putting a magnifying glass up to their hand under sunlight feels good.

Also that Crisco is ice cream.

And that 9-volt batteries taste good.

And eating alluminum foil (we had silver fillings back then.. now I got them all replaced with some white cemet stuff..).

I, in general, really don't like killing bugs. There such fascinating little automatons, it's a waste to break them.

Until you discover that a spider has found home in your ear while you sleep.

As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?

I'd like to know what age you did it, and if you still do it.

I tried drowning ants (didn't work - i used to make a little island for them surrounded by water and be their king), I squashed them. I made a little bow and arrow and shot the big grasshoppers. I collected spiders in a jar. I collected fish with a net when I was young and put them in a improvised pond. I had fish in an aquarium and later in a proper pond. Didn't hurt those but I did disect one once when it died.

Do I still do it?

No. I evolved. I now kill mice and mouse embryos.

And eating alluminum foil (we had silver fillings back then.. now I got them all replaced with some white cemet stuff..).
i remember the first time i accidently ate some aluminum foil with fillings.

No, never. Why would anyone torture such wonderful animals? :bugeye:

Interesting fact: ants can hold their breath by closing their airholes (spiracles?). You can't ether them like you can other bugs, they just hold their breath for a half hour, then croak. Beetles can do the same thing. You can speed the process up by putting them somewhere warm, like in the sun, as this will increase their metabolism and they'll run out of oxygen quicker. Contrawise, you can keep them alive much longer if you keep them in your fridge.

I studied ants growing up. I also had pet spiders and would feed the ants to the spiders or the spiders to the ants. It's part of a learning process. As a kid you won't know what an ant is without running some experiments. Now we all know what they are, because we all studied them at some point. I don't think it's a good idea to "bully" ants, but you must protect your space. Ant's should remain outside in their underground home, and we should remain in our domain, but in general ants arent a threat. Spiders are much worse. I don't tolerate spiders or really any animal that bites me.

Besides just manipulating ants, it's interesting to watch how they organize. You can learn all you need to learn about how to organize humans by watching ants. If you are an economics major, it all will make sense. Right now humans are part ant, part monkey, part spider. We have some of the organizer abilities of ants through capitalism and civlization. We have some of the communication, thinking, and empathy abilities of the monkey.We have the predator abilities of the spider, in that we will hunt anything, even ourselves.

Roman:

I had no idea you were a hermaphrodite with co-existing multiple personalities.

Interesting.

speaking of Drowning insects, try drowning bluebottles or other types of housefly. Once you think they are deceased, place them on some salt... within a few minutes they revive.

Also another cruel one is placing a salt ring around slugs during the night, so when it gets to morning they have two options.... die crawling across the salt or die from the sun drying them out (or of course being eaten by a bird)

speaking of Drowning insects, try drowning bluebottles or other types of housefly. Once you think they are deceased, place them on some salt... within a few minutes they revive.

Also another cruel one is placing a salt ring around slugs during the night, so when it gets to morning they have two options.... die crawling across the salt or die from the sun drying them out (or of course being eaten by a bird)

This reminds me.
We used to put salt in our bathroom drains (large rough pieces of natural salt), during monsoons to prevent earthworms who get washed out of their homes from crawling into ours. :p

I don't know why we stopped doing that. Seems there are very few earthworms now anyway.

I turn 21 this sept 14th. I am a little rather a lot crazy. I still enjoy spitting (rather than burning) on ants and cementing them in with dirt sprinkels. It is cement to them. It is cool. But it is evil.

No, never. Why would anyone torture such wonderful animals?
Because unlike you, we're actual humans.

Then that has to be transformed, er.. changed.

I'd mess with ants by kicking open their nests, and that's about it. Otherwise, I'd usually take earthworms and put them on ant nests, making them burrow in and then watch it try to make it out as ants begin to swarm it.

I rather watch ants feed on other insects than mess with them.


[Renrue]

makeshift are you the same person who posted the racist post earlier? Somehow I'm not surprised that you enjoy killing stuff for the fun of it. I hope you grew out of that behavior.

Haven't burned an ant yet. There are much better ways to torture and execute those invading bastards.

TimeTraveler:

Nope. I started that thread "Black people hate me." But I didn't say anything racist in it at all. If you doubt this, read it again more carefully.

Secondly, I don't see how that has anything to do with this.

Third, I was ten. That's what ten year old kids (boys) do. Do you know what a non-sequitur is?

I remember the most interesting day in my young life was when, one day, I made two adjacent ant colonies fight a war.
The black ones totally destroyed the smaller red ones.

Is war natural?

I remember the most interesting day in my young life was when, one day, I made two adjacent ant colonies fight a war.
The black ones totally destroyed the smaller red ones.

Is war natural?


Hmm I don't know; did they invoke their gods first?

Is war natural?


Ant have known war long before humans have.

I remember the most interesting day in my young life was when, one day, I made two adjacent ant colonies fight a war.
The black ones totally destroyed the smaller red ones.

Is war natural?

Ack. Mein Gott! I have something in common with Satyr.

I used to do the same thing. I used to go and dig up ant colonies looking for the queen. That was the best way to get a good war going. Ants would fight without queens present, but when the queens were there... man. They tore each other new assholes.

Used to set up sandboxes with a queen at either end. Shape the terrain with hills and valleys. Set up traps with ant lions and centipedes.

Damned exciting.


(Oops. I just realized that I have invited Satyr to go on about his favorite subject... Please, Satyr. Don't. NOt this time. Let it go, man.)

Ack. Mein Gott! I have something in common with Satyr.

I used to do the same thing. I used to go and dig up ant colonies looking for the queen. That was the best way to get a good war going. Ants would fight without queens present, but when the queens were there... man. They tore each other new assholes.

Used to set up sandboxes with a queen at either end. Shape the terrain with hills and valleys. Set up traps with ant lions and centipedes.

Damned exciting.


(Oops. I just realized that I have invited Satyr to go on about his favorite subject... Please, Satyr. Don't. NOt this time. Let it go, man.)
Here’s another thing we have in common: { }

Here’s another thing we have in common: { }

Oh come now.
Your wheat shaft is surely bigger around than that.
If not, then we don't have it in common as mine most assuredly is.

(By the way. Thank you for not taking the 'bait'.)

Anyway. I think you're just jealous that you didn't go the elaborate extremes of ant warfare that I did.
Yes?



You know.
Speaking of cruelty to invertebrates.
I clearly remember the day I saw my first slug. I grew up in a very dry place. No slugs. I went to visit my father for the summer... I forget where. Denver? Washington state? Hmmm. Somewhere wet, I know that.
With slugs.

I found one and was amazed by it.

My older brother told me to pour salt on it because they liked it.

I was so sad when it shriveled up and died. I never trusted my brother the same afterwards.

Poor little blighter...



Would it count as cruelty to make pill bugs curl up into balls and flick them across the room? You'd think they'd be evolutionarily tuned to like that sort of thing, yes?

I used to pinch the legs off of crickets before rolling them around in that vitamin powder stuff before feeding them to my pet gecko. But, their legs were always falling off anyway.

Heh.

There was a time I went to go buy a batch of crickets and they were in a baggie, right?
I put them on the dash of the car on the ride home, not really thinking much about it.

By the time I got home, they were all dead. They just fell out of the bag in a steaming heap.

Poor little things.

I honestly thought this guy was exaggerating when said that its common for guys to burn ants.

Seems like I've uncovered a veritable cornucopia here.

We consider it payback for all those times those bastards invaded our homes, ate our food, and annoyed us to no end; for all those times they bit us and made us itch; and for all those times they swarmed on and devoured our prehistoric rodentlike ancestors.

I've always wanted to do an additional experiment (like invert & Satyr said) between black and red ants:
Get an aquarium, put red ants on one side and black ants on the other side, both sides have a good layer of sand. Put a thin-like wall of sugar cubes in the middle, making sure to glue the cubes together and to the sides of the glass and top of the aquarium. Observe what happens as inevitably one of the little critters breaks through to the other side. Does he just go blindly down into the others' camp and get destroyed? Or does he go back for reinforcements? I wrote a little story about this one time when I was younger, but still have not had the chance to try it out.

I don't really care for insects that much; I burned a few when I was a kid, but the bigger the creature the less desire I had to experiment with them. Unless they were bigger insects, I guess. Insects are always portrayed as the bad guys, you know? Alien, all those cheesy 70's shows with giant ants, etc. Not too many people out there that like to cuddle with the little buggers.

Bugs are awesome. It's like playing with tiny robot.

I spent a lot of time in the tropics, both New and Old world growing up. I watched this guy fight off marauding fire ants (Old World equivalent of the army ant, except nocturnal and with fewer castes) with a makeshift flamethrower. That was pretty badass.

Once in Costa Rica I fed a small anolis (http://www.wildherps.com/images/herps/standard/A.tropidolepis_on_leaf.jpg) lizard to a http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/fletcher/SPID_1.GIF (nephila. The spider bit it and wrapped it up, the little lizard turning black with bulging eyes.

Ants v ants were pretty cool, but I always like ants v termites more. Grab a log infested with termites and throw it on an ant mound. The ants would spill in every opening and carry off defenseless worker termites. Soldier termites would spill out, plugging holes with their needle-like heads aimed out, drops of white toxins entrapping any ants that got to close. The ants always won, though.

Ants v scorpions, also cool. The scorpion stings the hell out of them, while the ants try to grab its legs and string it out.

I see no need in engaging in needless cruelty. I do recall throwing grasshoppers into the air conditioner fanblade when I was young though.

The only time I do anything to hurt bugs is when I can learn from it.

As I kid, I found there were better ways to play with ants. I used to put sugar water on the "frontier" between two ant colonies and watch them fight over the resource. The little ants would hold their own until the carpenter ants brought in a few big guards...then it was total carnage!

Probably should have read all the prior messages :)

i still do, one of my favourites is to get about 20-30 put them together then make a circle with flamable red sray around them and then woof

If you like burning ants checkout this game, it rocks like hell man!

http://www.addictinggames.com/antcity.html

I used to spend long boring summers at my grandmother's house when I was young. One of the things we (my younger brother and I) would do was get her magnifying glass, and spend the day burning stuff. The majority of the time, we burnt leaves and small sticks, but whenever we got bored with those, we would burn ants.
I'm not sure what made it so much fun-- I guess it was the thrill of chasing around a little critter with this tiny dot of light, and making lazerbeam noises.

Not ants, but I used to fuck up spiders when I was in my early teens. Don't know why I did it, I was probably just a little bored bastard with nothing better to do.

I would use fireworks to blow up the ants and their anthills. I would also stomp on their homes or ride my bike over them. I could have been anywhere from 12-16 years old. Now I use glass cleaner at work as "antammo" to cleanse them from our kitchen.

we have slug infestations so when im bored i grab a used syringe from the farm fill it up with salt water and inject it. or if there is no salt i use air and blow them up

we have slug infestations so when im bored i grab a used syringe from the farm fill it up with salt water and inject it. or if there is no salt i use air and blow them up

Eeew! http://messenger.msn.com/MMM2006-04-19_17.00/Resource/emoticons/52_52.gif

I've gotta admit, I've done the slug injections as well.

http://www.flashasylum.com/db/files/Comics/rsun.jpg (http://www.explosm.net/comics/63/)
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net (http://www.explosm.net/)

I don't believe ant's should be cremated! :bugeye:

I've gotta admit, I've done the slug injections as well.

I do believe Roman, there is very little that has passed you by. :p

What's that supposed to mean?

Oops guess I was wrong!

Good grief, this thread brings up many a fond summer memory

I remember that as soon as I was old enough to hold a magnifying glass I fried ants and all sorts of other bugs, the toughest bugs to kill were japanese beetles, damn things are the M1A Abrahms tanks of the bug world.

Had to fry off their legs to get them to hold still long enough to get through their armor

I used to spend hours watching ants. There used to be 5-6 types of them- large red, smaller red, large black, smaller black and formic acid ants. Each had their own ways of fighting. So a favourite pastime was to place a line of food leading to another ants' colony and initiate wars. And who won was of course was under my direction. While the red ones bit each other, the blacks always fleed with their eggs and queens and the formic acid ones sprayed acid.

Making holes in the soil next to an ant colony often led the ants to colonize the new underground passages, and of course assistance to ants to find bugs and worms was always appreciated by them. Sometimes pesticide formulation with soap, water, oil, kerosine was part of the game.

While all this was when I was in school, later education needed me to catch all kinds of insects, cyanide them and pin them for display.

It's an awful lot of fun when YOU are not the ant.

sieg heil!

No. I once intentionally killed an ant when I was probably 6-ish, but not by burning. I felt terrible about it, and still do.

Here's something anecdotal


During the Mahabharat, Yamaraja (the god of death) incarnated as Vidura, the half-brother and minister to the king of Hastinapur. The story of his birth started with a group of thieves that were escaping from the king's men. They ran into the aashrama (hermitage) of Manduka Muni, who was in meditation at the time (undergoing a vow of silence). When the king's men came for them, everyone was captured, including Manduka Muni. The judge hastily ordered that everyone be given the sentence of death (including the sage who was being suspiciously quiet through out the whole ordeal) by shulee, in which a person is killed by a large sharp lance. When it was finally Manduka Muni's turn, the lance would not drive through his body. The judge realized the mistake they had made, and thus let him go. But Manduka Muni went straight to Yamaraja, and asked what karma (past deed) he had done to deserve the punishment. Chitragupta, Yamaraja's attendant and the celestial bookkeeper, researched his records and found that when Manduka Muni was very young, he caught an ant and poked it with a needle. Manduka Muni however, referencing Yamaraja's "rule book," countered that because that act was done in ignornace as a child, the reaction should not have been as such. Manduka Muni then cursed Yamaraja to repent his mistake by being born on earth and bear insults as a child of the shudra (servant) class. Yamaraja was thus born as Vidura through a daasee (servant lady).

I've tried to burn ants, but I don't think my magnifying glass was good enough to finish the job. It did make them start to run and act "funny" though. I also pulled the wings from flies and tried to drown flies in glasses of water.

No regrets here. I considered it somewhat scientific and important in learning about my enviroment. I encourge all interested kids to give it a try.

However, I did stop this behaviour after seeing a younger neighbour tossing large rocks onto a helpless toad. It was the first time I actually felt any sorrow for an animal smaller then a cat. Since then I've become more of an observer. However, I have been known to still throw live bugs into spider webs to see what happens. Even though I am really far too old for this behaviour.

I can understand a little kid might do it once, but adults ? That's just sick !

I can't even understand how anyone could hold a magnifying glass on one ant long enough to burn them.

I do know you can burn a sibling who is sleeping in a hammock.

As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?

I'd like to know what age you did it, and if you still do it.I did, but I preferred to tear the wings off of flies and then throw them on spiderwebs.

Then I graduated to finding ant holes in close proximity and enticing a war.
It only worked once.

These days I prefer tearing the limbs off of cripples.

I can understand a little kid might do it once, but adults ? That's just sick !

According to an annual questionnaire given to a class by one of my professors, about 20% of boys are still burning ants when they reach his graduate level class. :eek:

And what does this mean?

why yes
yes indeed i do

And I only did it for a short while, made sure the knot was easy to remove.

I'm sure all of them were traumatised, but none of them died.

And I was little, maybe eight, but I still feel bad about it.

Wow, that is impressive, imo.

Do you ever have issues working with mice?

I never burnt ants, but I did kill them and drown them....

My grandma's house used to be infested with them when I was a child. I would carefully study their behaviour and devise ways to exterminate them. I managed to actually decrease their numbers quite a bit, but never managed to completely get rid of them. Then my dad decided to renovate the entire house. Afterwards, there were no big ants left, only a much more peaceful species remained. No wonder... the place looked like it was nuked.... LOL!!! :D

Good olde memories...... :)

Why did all you guys burn ants? What gave you the idea?
I've never burned ants, torn the legs off spiders, or ripped the light out of lightning bugs. It seemed needlessly cruel.

I did, however, once set a guys hair on fire while we were experimenting with magnifying glasses outside in physics class. We were sitting in the bleachers putside listening to the teacher blather on. It was quite boring so I focused my magnifying glass on the black hair of the guy in front of me. Smoke starting rising from his head! I stopped before he even noticed anything. It was pretty funny to see smoke rising from his head while he was completely oblivious.

But ants? Never.

I never burned an ant, or killed anything for entertainment, actually.

I've killed a lot of insects and animals, but for reason.

It still seems kind of weird, to me - abusing for entertainment. I remember the first time I saw that, when some new kids moved in next door, and one of the older boys would shoot frogs with a BB gun for fun. He didn't even take them home and eat them - just left them shot in the ditch.

They also played frog baseball - which kills the frog quickly and without much pain, and is kind of funny, but still - - -

It's an obliviousness I can't quite fathom, but I know it's OK in general - even decent, good, kind people can have that blind spot. It's how they learn. Like a kitten toying with a crippled mouse.

You learn more by watching, though. When it came time to trap gophers for money, I was better at it than they were - from paying attention to gophers, and having some empathy for them.

I've gotta admit, I've done the slug injections as well.

oh...i put a mollusc in a microwave.

but I wasn't a kid any more. 26 or so.

Also, throwing a log full of termites on top of an ant mound is awesome.
Fuck me I'm off to try that out.

Not ants, but I used to fuck up spiders when I was in my early teens. Don't know why I did it, I was probably just a little bored bastard with nothing better to do.

How about throwing ants into spiders webs? Thats fun to wtach.

According to an annual questionnaire given to a class by one of my professors, about 20% of boys are still burning ants when they reach his graduate level class. :eek:

That is sad..
Did he have any psychological insights on the matter ?

i never did such a stupid thing. i try to respect life except things like mosquitoes etc. Splat, it's me or them.

...and one of the older boys would shoot frogs with a BB gun for fun. He didn't even take them home and eat them - just left them shot in the ditch.

They also played frog baseball - which kills the frog quickly and without much pain, and is kind of funny, but still - - - ....

I remember my Mom finding out my brothers were putting firecrackers in toad's mouths. She went scarey crazy pissed! :eek: She was certain they were gonna grow up to be serial killers.

How do you get an ant to stay in one place long enough to burn it??

break its legs.

Question: do ants feel pain?

or ripped the light out of lightning bugs.
What are those?

I remember my Mom finding out my brothers were putting firecrackers in toad's mouths. She went scarey crazy pissed! She was certain they were gonna grow up to be serial killers. IMHO most of the kids who do that are oblivious - they have no suitable empathy or self-awareness, and look at the animal without seeing it really. Those kids seem to grow up OK, at least the ones I've known. It's a developmental feature of mind - one reason you don't leave even a nice, cute four year old alone with the family pet for long.

Every so often you get a kid who has empathy - who puts himself in the place of the ant, say, in imagination, and is aware of his own role and motives - and burns the ant anyway. That kid you want to keep an eye on, I think.
Question: do ants feel pain? No, essentially. The empathy is a false one, in that sense. But it is a real empathy. The next stage is what people call "respect" - what the Buddhists try to inculcate when they have beginning meditators thank the cushions they were sitting on.

Oh yeah, lightening bugs!
My brother-in-law caught a few and squished them on my daughters arms. He was showing her how to make herself glow. She came into the house with a horrified look on her face, holding her arms straight out whispering "he killed them"
I had to explain to him that we have a catch and release lightening bug program at our house.

What are those?
Where do you live? My mom's from Washington State and had never seen lightening bugs either until she came to the midwest.

Anyway, they're these cool bugs that fly around and have little glowing tails. You can rip them out and they still glow. Or just rub them on the ground and write your name or whatever.

In the midwest it's common practice for kids to catch them and put them in a jar by their bed at night.

Here's a close up view of one. Notice the bright yellow bit on the tail:
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/081firefly/images/turpin_fireflies.jpg
And here's a shot of a bunch of them at night:
http://images.snapfish.com/34438%3C:323232%7Ffp64%3Dot%3E2344%3D964%3D5:5%3DX ROQDF%3E2323948436847ot1lsi

I love fireflies, we call them jugnus. They look awesome in the night.

At first, I thought that was a picture of stars. And then I noticed the boats and got confused.... :bugeye:

Where do you live? My mom's from Washington State and had never seen lightening bugs either until she came to the midwest...

I'm from NE and I never saw them til I moved to MI. Here I was a grown woman of 27 running around the yard with my 3 yr old squealing in delight. My neighbors must have thought I was a loon.

I voted for all. It's the only sane thing to do.

OH... that's evil - i would never think to burn a living thing... sad...

maybe

No maybe about it. To burn a living creature is a form of psychopathic behaviour.

To burn a living creature is a form of psychopathic behaviour.
I agree.

Every so often you get a kid who has empathy - who puts himself in the place of the ant, say, in imagination, and is aware of his own role and motives - and burns the ant anyway. That kid you want to keep an eye on, I think.
I agree even more. But how many older kids running around with magnifying glasses doesn't have the capacity to understand what he is doing?

God is a child with a magnifying glass... does this make him slightly psychopathic... i would say yes, from human understanding.

Reiku, please stick to Human Science or butt out~ friendly warning

Sorry...

But when I SAID from a HUMAN PERSPECTIVE, i thought it was human science....???

hmm
how do you counter that?
eh? eh?
sam?

Let me illustrate with an example.

sam: Gustav you're a star

human perspective ---> compliment

human science----> Gustav is a giant ball of volatile gas that is bound to implode some day

shall we go back to discussing burning ants and the like?

you are meanie

Let me illustrate with an example.

sam: Gustav you're a star

human perspective ---> compliment

human science----> Gustav is a giant ball of volatile gas that is bound to implode some day

shall we go back to discussing burning ants and the like?

Emmm.... Why don't you stay on topic or butt out, hypocrite.

Why don't you all stay on topic.

Sounds like a plan? Yep. I think so.

People just don't look at bugs the same way they do other creatures. In fact, I bet a lot of people don't even consider them animals. They are bugs. They kill them all the time.

That could be because other animals may view the bugs as a food source.

I never burnt ants. The question that comes to mind here is 'why would I want to'?

The interesting thing to wonder is how many who did burn ants as small children received pleasure and gratification out of it, then moving onto bigger insects and then onto animals and so on...

Ever seen grown men sitting around a bug zapper?

Yes. But that is to keep the bugs away. What of those who seek out the ants or bugs with magnifying glass and/or lighter fluid and matches? Different context.

Lighter fluid and matches?? I have a husband who set fire to a wasp nest using that and more.

Yeah well he was trying to get rid of pesky wasps around your house right?

Does he head outside for no reason with a magnifying glass, matches etc just to kill bugs for fun?

Ever seen grown men sitting around a bug zapper?

It is impossible to convince anyone who owns a bug zapper that they don't kill the bad bugs, they do kill the good bugs, they draw bugs into their vicinity from a distance, and any benefit from them is as much from the light as from killing the Luna moths and Crane flies drawn in.

I have to think part of the attraction is the entertainment value of seeing some insect fry on the wires.

But IMHO it's not so much dark cruelty as a blank spot where the brain should have lights of its own.

As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?


Once. I think I used a match, not a magnifying glass. I already knew that ants will eat their dead, and wanted to see if they will eat "roasted ant". Answer: they did.

I loved to place various edibles (bits of meat, bread, candy, large insects, live froglets) near anthill, and watch ants handle them. I don't remember them ever refusing anything remotely edible.

As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?

I'd like to know what age you did it, and if you still do it.

Yes, for many reasons. Mostly boredom.
Until about 12 or so.
The so-called fireants are a problem in my area, I use gasoline on thier nests, then poison.

I remember frying more than a handful of ants as a youngster. I suppose I did it to see if it was for real
(really? you can torch them with one of these things?). I can also recall a sense of being god-like (Hah! little ant, ...).
Cruelty, to a kid is a notion that often occurs to them (to me anyway), a bit after the deed has been done.
I remember keeping white mice too, and I "looked after" them, but I got a bit bored with it. When I eventually decided ( maybe a few weeks of deciding) they should be fed, I opened the door of their little cupboard, and a pack of ferocious, dark brown and grey mice leapt out and disappeared quickly into the undergrowth --I'd left it a bit too long (I guess they survived on cannabilism and so on --I could see a big hole they had been trying to chew through the side of their prison. Oops).
This was an example of wanton neglect I guess, on my part.
I have since become something of a Buddhist, possibly (I open a window and try to shoo flies out, before using spray out of a can on the determined ones).

I remember frying more than a handful of ants as a youngster. ....

How? Did you rip off their legs first to they held still?

How? Did you rip off their legs first to they held still?No. just tracking them with the sun focused through a magnifying glass (which of course also burns other stuff, like wood).
P.S. I always left spiders alone (and I still do, even rescuing them and letting them go somewhere outside). I think spiders are pretty cool, though (and wetas). But then whenever some girl started screaming about some bug, I was always keen to see what it looked like (if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing)

No. just tracking them with the sun focused through a magnifying glass (which of course also burns other stuff, like wood).
P.S. I always left spiders alone (and I still do, even rescuing them and letting them go somewhere outside). I think spiders are pretty cool, though (and wetas). But then whenever some girl started screaming about some bug, I was always keen to see what it looked like (if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing)

"if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing"

Huh!? :bugeye:
How's that, do you care to explain ?

A little off topic here but has anybody ever eaten a bug? :bugeye:

As a "i dare ya" exercise, or accidentally (like on a motorbike)?
"if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing"

Huh!?
How's that, do you care to explain ?
I take I'm correct in assuming you're a member of the "screaming at spiders when a young girl" set?

HAHA like a dare ya.......or just because you are a freak!

I think I could eat any bug as long as it was roasted and crunchy (not squishy and gut bursting) EXCEPT for a cockroach.

I couldn't do it! I would :puke:

I think I could eat any bug as long as it was roasted and crunchy (not squishy and gut bursting) EXCEPT for a cockroach.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/11000/11324_w.jpg

Never burned ants. I stepped on them all the time though. Still do if I see the puny bastards in my vicinity. For one thing, it's fun watching them try to run from the impending doom that looms over them (my feet), and two, they're just bugs, so their lives don't matter. I'm someone who has no problem squashing things that are smaller than me. I don't make it an activity, but I've no problem demolishing the occasional anthill that's nearby, or slapping mosquitoes and flies with my hands. Sometimes I'll stand over an ant colony war and slowly bring my foot down over the entire battle and crush a hundred of them at once.

I don't like bugs and I have no responsibility to save them. At best, their existence only serves to amuse the cruel, egotistical whims of a colossal being thousands of times their size -- me.

leopold:

remember doing something similar to a bunch of yellowjackets.
i was mowing my grass when i ran over their mound, needless to say i was stung about 12-15 times before i could get away from them.
later that nigh i hit on the gasoline idea.
i went out there about midnight with about a pint of gas, upturned the can on their hill and lit it off. afew of them tried to fly out but their wings were burned off in the process. after the gas burned itself out i dug down about a foot or so to get the rest.


Are you Orleander's husband in disguise?

As a child, did you burn ants? If so, why?

I'd like to know what age you did it, and if you still do it.

No, I never did. I've never had any desire to be cruel to ants. I did once put my foot squarely into a big ant-pile while waiting to cross the street. I didn't know my foot was in it until they all started biting me. Why would I want to do something like that on purpose? It sucked. Of course to the ants it was an act of aggression though, hence the merciless biting. I would've saw it if I was looking down, but I wasn't. Plus it was hidden in the grass. I didn't expect it to be there and I was looking in front of me at the traffic. So I had to stop and take my shoe and sock off and try to get them off of me. Then it started raining.

leopold:


Are you Orleander's husband in disguise?

No, my husband didn't want to wait til it was night and cooler, when they would all be in the nest and lethargic. :rolleyes:
But is there a class they teach somewhere and you had the same teacher?

Your poll is flawed.
It is difficult to determine how many male respondents claimed to have burned/not burned ants.
Having said that, the number of male respondents seems to coincide with the number who said they did, so perhaps in spite of it being flawed the representative populations here make the question moot.

I did. Frequently. Usually with a magnifying glass doing one at a time and watching the effect this had on other ants. Another method is to place an obstruction in the food gathering pathway of a nest and see how they get around it... and how long it takes for them to find it.
I set fire to an ant's nest using petrol once, and was subsequently barred from attending a birthday party seeing as it took several trips to the laundry and half an hour to control the blaze.

The most interesting part was watching them come out by the hundred in order to determine what the problem was with the nest. Humans aren't all that different, really.

A little off topic here but has anybody ever eaten a bug? :bugeye:
Should I tell you how many you're likely to eat each night while you're asleep?
Probably not. Pointless, really.

Well i asked about myself face to face and only to do with people who had medical problems
they said they were killing ant or getting them off themselves legs or arms
they also mentioned the smells i asked them the species what type
it seemed each specie tha smelt had an lingering after effect on people and caused medical problems permanently
not all species did the same to us humans

which was what i really was looking for not who killed what

who killed what?

Quoting: "I burned more than a few ants with a magnifying glass when I was a kid, however I have since repented, and now just ignore them...or step on them."


I was painting a client's house, just finishing up the job when I'm walking around the house along the brick path, and stops to check my work on a window frame, when I looks down by my foot, and sees three large black ants pickup a dead sister in their six pincers, and hold it up as high as they could, as if saying to me, "See what your carelessness did!".. Then they dropped its carcass in a crack in the walk, and went on about their business...

________


Quoting: " The only bug torture I indulged in was catching dragonflies, tying them to a string and "walking" them around while they flew."


Last year, in my yard, I was standing on the grass, when a huge blue dragonfly flies by about three feet from my head... I says an excited "Hi!", and the bug flies a tight circle around my shoulders, decelerating, and lands on my nose, and stayed there for about two minutes...

Life's little creatures respond well to kindness...
Be kind to the little life, and the big life will be kind right back...

________


Quoting: "i remember doing something similar to a bunch of yellow jackets."


When I was 14, down at the river fishing, I accidentally stepped on a huge yellow jacket's nest which was hidden within a pile of twigs... Out from the twigs came a yellow rope.. at least that's what it looked like... It made a beeline for me... I shook off the dozen that landed on me, jumped back 6-feet, and made my stance... I held my hands by my side.. firm, and unyielding, waiting for the opportune moment to strike... The line of angry hornets came in directly for my face... I held.. I held.. I held.. Then when the point was just two feet from me I raised my hands as fast as I could, and clapped the point bugs between two hands, squishing the first seven warriors.. and I stood my ground, and slowly opened my hands to show the rest what had just happened to their best... I stood there solid, and telepathed to the queen, in her hive, a video of me squishing her too... Suddenly the whole line broke-up, and the all hornets went home...
If my trick hadn't worked they would have stung me dead...

I say an excited "Hi!" to a passing huge shiny black wasp, and it lands on my face, and preens a while, then leaves... I enjoy being friends with the venomous creatures...

________


Quoting: "Why would anyone torture such wonderful animals?"


I think it's their fear of animals...

I heard about a hunter who would get a small bear in his sites, and shoot off toes and ears to work the animal up into a rage.. and then when the bear charged its attack, he would do the kill shot... I suppose he would rush and drool from doing the kill... I suppose he labeled it "defensive killing"...

One of my high school buds turned out to be a serial murderer... One day he detailed how his last kill, killed himself with the game he had set up for the kid to kill himself on.. and he drooled so profuse while he told his story, that he had to wipe his chin three times... It sickened me, by I tried to remain neutral, so as to not frighten him away...
Then I was his next victim, his "number four"... I barely survived that guy's games...

________


I find when I'm working with tools in the yards, that should a bug happen to be in the way of my work, and will likely be killed should I continue.. I stop my work, and gently invite and persuade the critter onto my hand, black widows too.. and relocate them to a safe place away from my project... I find that little gesture of kindness to some little life, reflects in my work.. by allowing me to see the errors in advance of them happening, in time to correct them before doing them...

________


Lets take a little peak at a tiny scratch into some honest reality...


"So I see you read hunter's mags... Are you a hunter? .. as in do you kill things?..

You don't know, but all that killing you do comes right back at you... It's a Karma thing...
Hurt Life, and Life Hurts you right back...

I sees a huge dragonfly fly-by a couple feet away... Critters feel safe near me... I might say an excited "Hi!" to the dragonfly.. and the thing lands on my nose, and rests there a couple minutes.. meeting me... and I gets a chance to see a huge bug up-close...

I sees a large leafhopper bug on the rain barrel.. and I says to the bug, "You won't find any food here on this ole plastic thing.. Here!.. Hop onto my thumb, and I'll take you to a better place."..
The bug crawls onto my thumbnail.. and faces forward...
"Ok'ie.. Hows about a dandelion..?"
We stops at a dandelion, and bug flips around so fast.. I saw it facing forward, then it was facing me.. My eyes couldn't follow what happened in between facing out to suddenly facing me, it was done so lightning fast!..
"Ok.. Not the dandelion..."

"Howzabout a rose?.. Lets go see the rose.."
We gets to the rose.. a foot away bug flips its back on the rose...
"Ohkay.. not rose."..

"Oh Look!.. I faces the bug to me, by twisting my wrist.. "There's a Huge Daisy over there!"... I points the bug at the daisy... "Look at the Size of It! It's Absolutely Huge!.. Lets go see the Daisy..."

A foot away, the bug seems a little excited... Eight inches away bug is doing a dance.. It's legs jumping all over.. it's rocking side to side like it's so excited that it's gonna shit itself any second... Six inches away the bug leaps to the daisy, while I continues along the path in stride...

Two days later I'm walking near that daisy, and a large bug leaps off the flower, landing on my face, slips off my skin, falling into my cupped hand... I looks down at my little visitor leafhopper.. "So.. I'm bettin' you wants a ride to the rain barrel, my little friend."..

___


I sees a butterfly flapping around a few feet away... I says, "Hi.. I'd like to meet you"... The bug lands on a log.. and I walks over, and when my hand is six inches away, it opens its wing a bit, and permits me to move them open, then raise them closed... and it opens them again a little, for another round... and holds its wings where I set them... I pushed one wing, and its legs buckled on that side... I moved my finger to the other wing, and notices it is setting its legs to take the same applied force as the first wing took... I wait till it has firmed up its stance, then gently pushes that wing down.. touching lead edge only, and avoiding touching overly sensitive feelers... That would be like touching a biased mosfet transistor after walking across a carpeted floor...

I meet a black widow spider out for a stroll... I says "Greetings your Majesty.. May I touch?.." She permits me to softly tap on her back, and holds her legs in what ever position I push them to... I can make her seem like she has only four legs, by pushing them together in pairs... A light puff of warm breath, and she sets her legs back to eight, and slowly walks away...


What do people do when they see a little bug on the sidewalk..?
They crush it with their foot... Squishing the Life right out of it.. killing it for living... Killing it for fun... Killing it for fear...
Then they somehow hurt themselves a little.. like a cut or bruise, within a few minutes of the needless murder of that innocent little life...

You kill things.. Now they're dead and gone... Now you can't play with them...

I once walked up to a grizzly adult she bear, bowed, said greetings your majesty, sat eight feet from her, and employed sounds and telepathy to teach her English... She was shot on the bored of Jasper national park after she told a hiker to get out of her forest... I had injected a telepathic map in her head to where she would be safe from hunters... She though I gave her that forest... Her babies would have played gently with humans...

Did you get a rush killing something little and innocent..? You must eat what you kill!.. You can't eat bugs... Leave them be!..

All the bad that's happening in the world is because of people killing things, and each other... It's all coming back at us... There is less and less Life on this planet from second to second... One day she's just gonna up and run out of Life... and humanity we will wake up on its deathbed...

Everything is so integrated on this planet... Tap a long piece of steel.. and it rings at the other end...
Kill all the mosquitoes.. a billion billion critters have run out of food... Put garbage into the oceans, and we get it back in our seafood and drinking water...
Shit and piss on the land, and it comes back in our food... Exhaust the air, and we breathe it back... Run diesel engines at the poles, and the ice melts from the exhaust dust holding the sun's heat, and the weather dies when there is no more cold air to make weather... and the planet turns into dessert...


I used to hunt too.. I enjoyed doing head shots just like you do... I could shoot the eye of a pigeon with a pistol at two hundred feet.. till one day I looked into a dying animal's eyes, and saw and felt, only "WHY?"... It still stings me hard when I think back on it...

So I quit hunting and killing.. and suddenly all the bad things that used to happen to me, ceased happening... It was as if I hurt Life.. then Life hurt me back... One for one.. Life always got even... My killing Life, was really killing my life... It was like a wake of sticky-shit for all the shit I do... And sometimes it would catch up to me, and bite me real bad... like when I made explosives in my basement lab, and blew-off the tips of of two fingers... I can't tell you how much that hurts... You gotta be in it to know... Just thinking on it gives me some of them horrid rushes...

I'm seeing hunters having all that hardship happening to them.. as horrid diseases ravaging their bloodlines.. and hundreds of accidents in the family.. and pain and sorrows, creeping in from all directions, like a devil is clawing at your back, trying to rip your skin off... It's the killing you do to Life.. It's all coming back at you, in Life killing you as much as you are harming Life...

We aren't the only thing that do the "eye for an eye" thingawhozits... There is bigger Life than us... Those who kill are acting like little bad-gods to Life.. and Life is slapping all your own shidt right back at you in your face...

I'm not saying you should quit hunting... If you must hunt you must.. but if you can stay one jump ahead of your evil wake of Karma, and you really do enjoy killing.. then have a pardy if you must... But if you are fed up with all the pain and misery slapping you down day by day.. Then start treating Life nice, and Life will start treating you nice... It'll be your first "miracle", to yourself... No one else is gonna do it for you... Either you want Life, or you want Hell... It's your freewill...