creepy crawlies

I used to be terrified of fire-flys because I believed they would burn if they landed on me.

kevin

My friend used to believe that bees made honey and jam.

julia

When I was five years old I found a ladybug in the bathroom. My older sister rushed in and shouted at me not to touch it because it was 'poisonous to anyone under the age of eight!'. She was ten, so she picked it up for a closer inspection. Years later I realised she'd only told me that because SHE wanted to hold the pretty insect..

Julia

I used to beleive that if we didn't spray the ants, there would be hundreds of them in my house taking over.

Rob

When I was about 4 I was brushing my hair in the mirror and my sister jokingly said there was a bug in it. But sure enough when I looked up I saw a nat flying around the top of my head. I started bawling and ran to my mother who told me that the nat was flying around my head because it liked pretty girls. I believed her and stopped crying. How dumb of me!

Cooper

I was almost 9 when Star Trek's Wrath of Khan came out. Needless to say, that led to many nightmares and an intense fear of bugs getting into my ears, as they would make me go crazy. 20 years later, that's all I remember of the movie and the thought still gives me the creeps.

Anon

There has long been an urban myth that it is against the law to kill a praying mantis. This probably comes from the fact that they kill pest insects and are considered benificial.

When I was kid, my best (?) friend placed a praying mantis under a large clam shell with out me knowing it. Then bet me I could not break the shell with the heel of my shoe. After seeing the smashed shell with bug guts underneath, my friend spent the next week telling every grown up he met I had killed a mantis - hoping someone would call the police.

Watti

When I was little, my cousins, brothers and I (since I am the only girl out of 4 brothers, and one of 4 girls out of 14 cousins) would put straws in the ground and try to suck up the worms... Tony (the oldest) told us that it was cool, and since he was older and "cooler" back then, we all did it... unfortionately, i got a worm one time, and so did Tony... it was pretty gross

kimi

When I was small I always called Woodlice, Armadillos because they had that armour on. I even played with them in the house!

My brother and I also made a worm farm in tha back garden with fences and then couldn't understand where all the worms had gone when we came back the next day!

Charlotte

My mom and i went to the zoo when i was about 5 and we entered the insect area. we saw some weird bug that looked like tiny peices of lettece and they had a large piece of lettece to eat. she told me that the large peice of lettece was the mother and the actual bugs were her babys!

Sarah

When I was really little, I used to think that there were flies covering my kitchen floor. I could see them, but they were never really there. I would walk around on the knuckles of my feet with my toes curled under my feet. It hurt a lot, but I thought the flies would hurt me if I walked regularly.

Kari

Once my brother told me that spiders bite and kill you and i believed him, that was 11 years ago (im 13 now) and im still scared of them

Heidi Caple (england)

In kidnergarten, my friend Warren brought a dead (petrfied? fake? Hey I was 5, i dont know) starfish to school to show me. He said that even if it was dead, if i touched it then it would flip over quicker than lightning and poison me. I didn't believe him, and I slowly reached my hand over... and WHAMM! he flipped it over onto my hand and I ran screaming to the other side of the room. Even though now i realize that HE flipped it -clever guy!- I still don't like starfish.

Ruth N.

Once my mum told me that if I saw a wasp, if I stayed still it wouldn't sting me. One day, out in the garden I was approached by three hornets, which I thought were wasps. I decided to stand as still as humanly possible, only the damn things wouldn't go away. I stood there for over half an hour until the hornets got bored. I'm glad I got over that one.

Spacestarcat

Wasp Chasing. My mean sister told me that if a wasp wouldn't leave me alone in the garden, all I had to do was run around the garden twice and into the house as fast as possible. We had a massive garden. So I did this several times-it worked! Of course it did, by a couple of metres it probably flew away/got bored while I was running my little legs off round and round the garden CONVINCED it was right behind me.

Library

My older sister told me that if a dragonfly touched you, that spot would swell up for the rest of your life. I was terrified of dragonflies for years.

Anon

I used to think that if bees made honey, then wasps must make marmalade...but then I stuck my finger in a wasp nest trying to get out some marmalade...not fun.

Katherine

When I was younger I used to believe that worms had big cartoon hands and would pull you into the ground with them.

Jade