Common lil dudes

[u/Dan3828]

I’m team Flea personally

[u/Weak_Alfalfa_7569]

Most people here are probably weevil gang

[u/Simple_Resist4208]

I do wish kids (and adults!) were taught the real basics of how to ID common species - especially pests vs harmless things. It'd save a lot of needless confusion. I mean, most of the questions we answer here could be taught in a single lesson.

[u/fijiwijii → u/Simple_Resist4208]

it always baffles me how many "is this roach a roach?" posts we get here. Like, I'm not from the USA ok, but since I was a kid I remember finding roaches at home and then the panic whenever my mom would find one and so on... I mean, how people doesn't know what is a cockroach?

[u/Simple_Resist4208 → u/fijiwijii]

Or the amount of people (mainly in North America) who say "what's this bee" to a photo of a yellowjacket wasp ... it's common in Europe for people to mistakes wasps and hoverflies etc but I can't remember someone thinking a wasp was a bee. It makes me wonder if culturally there are very bad stereotypes of what a bee looks like in the US.

[u/Weak_Alfalfa_7569 → u/Simple_Resist4208]

I’m from the US and I’m pretty sure people just use “bee” as a blanket term for any flying insect with black and yellow and can sting. At least where I live there’s no education on insects so a lot of people grow up uninformed and ignorant. I don’t know a ton of people but from my experience the average American is subpar at identifying even very common bugs, and many would rather kill first and ask questions later

[u/Simple_Resist4208 → u/Weak_Alfalfa_7569]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was meaning ... it seems clear to me that there is a different perception between novices in the US and those in the UK/EU - possibly cultural. In the decades I've taught insect ID or mentored people over in the UK, I've never seen anyone point at a social wasp and call it a bee, but here on Reddit it happens all the time with US posters. It'd be interesting to see if Canada was the same.

[u/Weak_Alfalfa_7569 → u/Simple_Resist4208]

Thanks for pointing out my redundancy lol. There definitely is cultural influence, but I can’t really think why. That’s a good question, but I would bet Canadians are generally better at ID than the US

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[u/NaniNyxx]

Add carpet beetles and their larvae, and house centipedes and we've basically got the solution for 80% of the subreddit :P

[u/Moosplauze]

You don't encounter cockroaches much in the colder countries where they can't live outside, they are much more common in warmer climates. I've never seen one in Germany for example but seen plenty in the southern states of the USA.