Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone fear like I do, that in the very near future, we may read in the paper that a population of some highly interesting, but deadly invertebrate with great adaptive powers has escaped and started a non-native breeding and entrenched population within some neighborhood AND the heavy calls for resrictions and keeping exotic animals.
Scenario: Pair of some deadly spiders or scorpions(let say Death Stalker Scorpions), what have you, start having encounters with kids and grandparents and adults. Fuming local governments under pressures like we have not witnessed perhaps ever, ever before start passing ordinances and laws , etc. heavily restricting even the casual keeping of herps.
I am the first to confess ignorance of inverts and which deadly ones could survive. I am sure there is no distinction between invert keepers and herp keepers with respect to caution against such happenings, but, lets face it, humans being what they are, and Murphy's Law always close by, and lastly, the fact that something like this only needs to happen once-it just seems a matter of time to me.
Sure exobiotic reptiles and fish and birds have themselves established, but it seems just sooooo much easier with inverts for this stuff to happen.
Just an idle thought while joyfully procrastinating on important things I have to get done before I sleep.
Lastly, I don't expect anything like this to happen tomorrow or even this year, but, I would be surprised if soemthing like this was not reported in 5-15 years given how easily some of these critters reproduce and how easily they can be assimilated even into an urban environment before being noticed. What a pain in the butt this will be to exotic pet keepers if this happens.
Matt

I think that in any place that's warm enough for those species to survive they'll just get eaten by fire ants...
-----
Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Actually your scenario is happening...but it is in the fish world. White Amur Carp were introduced (for weed control) in South Florida waters. The carp are a known biological hazzard out west where they have depopulated lakes and streams where they become established due to bank errosion caused by their rooting. This destroys bottom plants as well as burys the eggs of other fish.
The releases were justified by the claim that the carp (that live up to 45 years)were sterile. Now baby carp are showing up (Jurrasic Park anyone?).
An insect here would have a rougher go (due to argentine ants-wellestablished here)...But keep in mind, it has not stoped the Bramminy blind Snake from becoming a resident, as well as Basilisks, iguanas ,Geckos, ameivas, several anoles and curly tail lizards.
Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

not deadly per se (unless a house collapses on ya), but there is that subterranean termite that I believe was introduced out of asia accidently long long ago and which spread all over - look at the damage it does to buildings particularly all the historical buildings down in New Orleans (with all that humidity and wood around). people use termites as food for some small herps so it's not unconceivable they would deliberately propagated and if such were to escape propagation in a captive setting where currently none of those termites are naturally a problem it could make for big problems later down the road as they establish themselves in that new niche.
-----
_____

PHWyvern

We have them in Florida now.
Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I know these insect can and have established themselves, but despite economic or ecological damage, it does not motivate grass level politics, but when the killers get lose and get established I imagine way more interference into the keeping of all exotic pets.
Do others see the same imminent threat?
PS "Kill you Dead" spider is not a scientific name, I am sure our bug guys can imagine some pain in the butt public scenarios if "X" hot bug gets loose and established in community!
So when highly aggressive and lethal bug X gets established and various incidents(fatal bites to kids, adults,etc.) start occurring that would be preventable in the eyes of Joe Public "if only those wierdos couldn't keep those things in the first place!" this is when I see trouble for us all.
The scrutiny and legislation to come down on all of us will be extreme in the least I think.
I hope this plausible situation is more clear now with the growing popularity of invert hots.

Hate to rain on your parade but there aren't any kill ya dead in 30 second scorps and spiders. Even the hottest scorps tend to only cause problems to the very elderly and young as well as those with compromised immunes systems. Pretty much like the way bees can be serious to some but to most are harmless. Now that isn't to say I recommend handling L quinquestriatus ( deathstalker ) by any means but there have been healthy adults stung with no ill effects other than pain. They also wouldn't survive the US winters so having them become established isn't going to happen.

Among the spiders not too many are dangerous with the exception of the funnel webs and the wandering spiders both of which are watched pretty closely as far as exports go. This isn't to say that some won't slip through the cracks but I doubt it is a major concern. The funnel webs are however quite hot and a bite from one would be bad news.

Phil

It may be happening now, but not in the context you are talking about. I have a friend in the Air Force. He related that a large number of inverts, primarily spiders, are returning on planes from Iraq that are coming back to the States for routine work ups. Something to think about. Todd