Of bugs and creatures

I wish I had pictures of all of them, but I've run across some unusual creatures since being here. Most of them fall in the category of insects or spiders, though I have a also seen an adorable tan weasel that apparently lives around in the greenery by the apartments here. I hope to eventually have a photo of him, as well as of the blue-tailed lizards that live near the driveway.

So, those who know me know that I battle with arachniphobia, though I've gotten a lot better over the last few years. Anyway, the first night when I arrived, I had been awake for about 23 hours already and was quite disoriented at that point, but I sort of woke up again with interest and excitement to see my room here, and somehow just had to unpack everything. I went to dust off the bookshelf and sitting there was a very large, dead spider. Now this was better than it being alive, in my opinion, but the fact that such things had ever walked around in my room was not one of the first things that I wanted to find out, especially since my bed sits right on the floor. Obviously spiders can get pretty much anywhere, anyway, but still...
I was not favorably impressed. I did, however, need to get that thing out of here and I wanted pictures of it for a couple of reasons...I wanted to be able to identify it and I knew I would want to remember being able to adjust to sleeping in a room where such a thing was found a few feet from where I was to get into bed.



I haven't been arachniphobic all my life, in fact I used to like spiders (not necessarily big huge things like that in my ROOM by my BED!) I still find them somewhat fascinating when they are outside where they belong. I've seen a lot of interesting, larger than what I'm used to, spiders around here.





This sign is posted at the top of hill on a fence by a dense forest that is all around this area, as well as the fact that the forest comes down that hill within less than a block of where I live. If I understand the kanji on this correctly, it is saying that bears appear, take notice. I may be off on this, but being as it is a yellow sign with a bear on it and the first one definitely is the kanji for bear and the others represent somewhat what I just said...

It feels a little odd to think of being warned of bears in a city, but I guess it's better than not being warned. Apparently there are boars around here, also. Not sure which I'd rather see.

I look forward to seeing the monkeys that live fairly near here! It seems fun to live near them. I'm rather anxious to get over there before too much longer. Hopefully I'll have some photos to share of them.

Sometimes lizards like to be here in the apartments. Better lizards to take care of excess bugs inside than spiders, in my opinion! This little one was in the doorway of another apartment. I caught it and put it in this small cup to show the size.



I have no idea what this is, but it was on the wall in the hallway one night.
I mentioned in an earlier post the giant praying mantis in the shower room, but as I don't generally take my camera in the shower with me, I sadly don't have a picture of him. I've never seen a mantis that huge. I hope to see one again. A smaller one was on the wall in the hallway, but my photos turned out a bit blurry. I'll post one anyway, and replace it with a better one later if I can. This little guy was kind of cute, so I wish his pictures had turned out better. I think he didn't like the flash so much, though.


I tried to take a photo of something that seemed to be a cross between a bee and a humming bird the other day, but it flew off before I could really get a decent picture of it. I have some photos of the smaller bees around here, but there are some gigantic ones that I would like to photograph if I can, those and the huge dragonflies.