creepy crawlies

My daughter thought bumblebees were baby hummingbirds.

Carolyn

When I was very young, I commonly heard people around me say, "Shoo." if an insect was bothering them. My parents told me that whenever a fly or bug was pestering me, I would sit down, take one of my shoes off, and wave it at the bug while saying, "Shoe bug... shoe!" because I was too young to understand the differance between shoo and shoe.

Krista

I used to believe that butterflies were born when a fly mated with butter. I had no idea how this would happen. I suppose the fly sat on the butter.I was a strange kid...

Ryan

When I was little, I got stung by a wasp on my foot. I was resting my foot inside, sad because I was missing out on a beautiful summer day, and I told my older brother what happened. He said, "Oh, that sucks, now all of your toes will disappear!"
When my toes didn't disappear, I just thought I was extremely luck. I believed him until I was 11 or 12

mellie

Once when I was about 9 or 10, I thought I had maggots in my mouth. I went up to my teacher and said to her 'I've got maggots in my mouth' and the whole class burst out laughting. I'm now 30 and can't for the life of me remember what made me think I had maggots in my mouth.

Anon

Until I was about 6, I used to believe that flys were raisins with wings.

Anon

When I was five, I used to believe that worms grow into snakes.

Mz Dimple

When I was young somebody told me moths eat your clothes. From that day on I was terrified of moths because I thought they'd pounce on me, gnaw my clothes off, and leave me standing there naked. I'm 67 years old and I'm still scared of moths.

lepidopteraphobe

I used to believe that if you cut an earthworm in half that it created two new worms. I was told this by my neighbor after I accidently cut a worm in half while digging in the ground and started crying. I belived this into my 20s.

Anon

When I was little I used to believe that a centipede walked like a tank- with a track of legs moving one after the other in a cycle.

Kirsten

I used to believe that mosquito larvae were baby hammerhead sharks. Made the ditch a very dangerous place!

Karen

I used to believe that insects came from raindrops. Why? My Dad told me so. I had an arguement with my primary school teacher over it, and even her clever use of fact and logic wasn't enough to convince me my dad had fibbed.

Git

I used to believe that big grasshoppers would spit tobacco at you if you got too close to them.

Uni

My mother believed until very recently, that slugs were snails that had come out of their shells. She used to go around the garden breaking empty shells, so they wouldn't be able to get back in.

carole, UK

My sister used to believe that butterflies were actually children that had been "transformed" by an evil being (???) and now they were evil and out to get her.

She's 37 now and still screams (no lie) when she sees a butterfly. I proved this recently at wal-mart in the cloth section when I pointed out a lovely piece that had butterflies on it. I said "Oh look at the butterflies!" She screamed in the middle of Walmart. I love butterflies and have several tattoos of them. I'm surprised she isn't terrified of ME. :)

Vickie's Sister

When I was really young (I don't know exactly how old), I asked my mom why love bugs were stuck together. She told me it was because one was the mom and the other was the baby. It seemed completely logical because one of the bugs was always bigger than the other. Well, I did not learn the truth until I was in ninth grade when it came up in our lunch conversation. Everyone laughed at me when I started talking about the mother and the baby love bugs. I was I was so embarrassed and pretty mad at my mom.

Anonymous

when i was in kindergarten there was a breakout of lice and all the parents were given letters to tell them how to get rid of them. i asked my mum one day what lice were and she told me that they were small animals that lived on your hair. i got scared then because i imagined that there were small giraffes, small elephant and all the other animals living on my hair!

toni

I used to think animals understood everything just like we did, so I was very hurt when I helped a bug out of the swimming pool and it stung me! Didn't it know I was trying to save it from drowning?

Kristen

I used to believe that if I caught a butterfly, and rubbed the powder off his wings, I could rub the powder on my arms and then I would be able to fly (the poor butterfly sure couldn't, anymore!). And then, when I couldn't fly, I just figured that I hadn't got enough powder yet...

Stephen J

My sister told me that spiders lived in lightswitches. I was afraid of the dark and spiders so you can see my delima. I believed it for years.

Tracey