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Dude, one word:

Morgellon's disease.

I guess that's two words. Here's two more:

Lyme disease.

And you already mentioned West Nile.

For your sake, and for the sake of your animals, you might want to consider not going out there into the wild unless you're wearing a haz-mat suit.

Seriously, them tick-borne illnesses don't play around. They can ruin your life.

I've heard that putting a dryer sheet in your pocket will repel mosquitos. It's worth a try.

I thought West Nile was a mosquito thing, not a tick thing?

Hey resedit how'd you like it if I started to call all amphibians newts. No matter what kind of amphibian it actually is I'll just call it a newt. Remember all bugs are insects but all insects aren't bugs! For that matter ticks aren't even in the Insecta class they belong to the Arachnida class of spiders and the such.

Aaron_R wrote:

Hey resedit how'd you like it if I started to call all amphibians newts. No matter what kind of amphibian it actually is I'll just call it a newt. Remember all bugs are insects but all insects aren't bugs! For that matter ticks aren't even in the Insecta class they belong to the Arachnida class of spiders and the such.

I didn't call a tick an insect.

I did refer to insect repellent, but insect repellent is what they call the stuff that people use to avoid insects AND ticks.

If you want to get super technical, though, the ticks aren't only coming from the cat grass - they are coming from all kinds of vegetation out there.

-=-=-

Thinking about it - one possibility of where they might be hiding is in my shoes, which are not put through the wash. Maybe I should spray my shoes before I go out.

Aaron_R wrote:

Hey resedit how'd you like it if I started to call all amphibians newts. No matter what kind of amphibian it actually is I'll just call it a newt. Remember all bugs are insects but all insects aren't bugs! For that matter ticks aren't even in the Insecta class they belong to the Arachnida class of spiders and the such.

Is this what you were referring to?

Maybe they will keep bugs off if the bugs have another food supply, but when the bugs are hungry, they just don't work.

I was referring to bugs in general.
The organic repellents just don't work, for ticks, mosquitoes, or anything out there I've encountered.
They probably make someone a tidy profit though.

Chickenhawk wrote:

He's taking exception to your calling ticks and mosquitoes 'bugs'. There's a order of insects, Hemiptera, which are known as 'true bugs'. However, the common vernacular of 'bug' means any terrestrial arthropod.

Not in my vocabulary or anyone I hear use it in such a way as I will correct them.

sturner wrote:

"Bugs, Mr. Rico. There's millions of bugs..."

Not everyone uses correct terminology, wants to, or needs to.

Well now Mr. Rico can be standing in any number of places for his statement to hold true, like a bean field (which could host millions of aphids)

Last edited by Aaron_R (2009-05-28 4:13 pm)

sturner wrote:

"Bugs, Mr. Rico. There's millions of bugs..."

Not everyone uses correct terminology, wants to, or needs to.

Indeed. I often don't use correct terminology when speaking outside a scientific capacity in subjects I'm an expert in (e.g. calling any mass wasting event a 'landslide' while a 'landslide' is a very specific type of mass wasting event).

Aaron_R wrote:

resedit wrote:

Aaron_R wrote:

Hey resedit how'd you like it if I started to call all amphibians newts. No matter what kind of amphibian it actually is I'll just call it a newt. Remember all bugs are insects but all insects aren't bugs! For that matter ticks aren't even in the Insecta class they belong to the Arachnida class of spiders and the such.

Is this what you were referring to?

Maybe they will keep bugs off if the bugs have another food supply, but when the bugs are hungry, they just don't work.

I was referring to bugs in general.
The organic repellents just don't work, for ticks, mosquitoes, or anything out there I've encountered.
They probably make someone a tidy profit though.

Yes, as you were talking about ticks and mosquitoes getting on you  and than referred to the both of them as bugs. You hit a pet-peeve of mine is all. Having went to school to study entomology and enjoy collecting and studying insects it's just one of the small things that 'ticks' me off ^_^ A good pesticide free way to help keep those pesky mosquitoes at bay is a sonic sound device which puts out sonic sound waves to emulate that of a bat. I'm not sure of the brand the one I've got but it's sized about that of the 1st gen ipod just fatter (works wonders in the wisconsin woods) As for tick repellents I haven't a clue. I do the same exact thing you do, get naked.

Those expensive sonic solutions never worked to keep fleas and ticks off our dog growing up, and I suspect they may be audible to many of the reptiles and amphibians I am looking for, alerting them to my presense.

Usage The word bug is often used to refer to tiny creatures that crawl along, such as insects and even small animals that are not insects, such as spiders and millipedes. But for scientists the word has a much narrower meaning. In the strictest terms bugs are those insects that have mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking. The mouthparts of these bugs are contained in a beak-shaped structure. Thus scientists would classify a louse but not a beetle or a cockroach as a bug. In fact, scientists often call lice and their relatives true bugs to distinguish them better from what everyone else calls "bugs."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Bug

Common vernacular includes spiders etc. as bugs.

Kind of like Western fence lizards in common vernacular are called "Blue Bellies" even though there is a different Mexican species (same genus) that officially has the common name "Blue Belly".

If you are speaking scientifically, you generally refer to the taxonomy to avoid any confusion.
You won't get none scientists who could care less to stop calling spiders and ticks "bugs".

I suspect the word "bug" may actually predate the scientific classification system that has narrowed the definition in a scientific sense.