this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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So, having grown up in exurban (my old haunts are now firmly suburban) Jacksonville...
Not mine, but the folks actually on the lake instead of the river? Sure. I saw a few. My parents did always warn me not to go into the EPA drainage easement behind the house, too. I only had to stop my car to let a gator pass one time, and that was pretty far out into the sticks.
Egrets, maybe, especially after a rain. Plenty of turkey buzzards too, when there was roadkill. Really, though, all birds are dinosaurs.
Ran into this more that summer in college when we lived in my buddy's 500 sqft concrete block "lake house", but it probably happened at home too. After we moved the 30 minutes back to Gainesville for fall semester, I understand his dad got drunk one night and crashed his bass boat into one of the neighbors' dock, so he came over the next day with a 12-pack and a van full of lumber.
How else to you propose he get the gun into the car? Sheesh. This was more necessary than unusual.
Now, you need thin flip flops and a big sand spur, but sure. Happened to me at least once. Also need to watch out for young prickly-pear cactus that are still small but have sprouted their thorns.
You'll have to be more specific. Fire ants would be the most likely. Most I ever got at once was about thirty when I stepped right in a pile while helping my dad, illegally it turns out, dump fill dirt on the aforementioned drainage easement. They may also have meant chiggers or redbugs. They're most common in the Spanish moss, but they're around everywhere, and if you get into the larvae they can also give you a bunch of red rashy-looking bites.
NE Florida was in a long hurricane lull during my time living there, but this was a pretty known thing everywhere else, and sitting out to watch the lightning was pretty common. That part of Florida also gets tornadoes.
There is one big reason I will never live in Florida beyond everything. Even Ron DeSantis.
That reason is palmetto bugs.
Giant flying cockroaches? Why the fuck does anyone live where they exist?
Well, they are easier to spot and less likely to do a full on home infestation than German cockroaches, so there's that. They are pretty nasty though, especially their guts.
Please also consider the deer fly. 1/3 the size of horseflies, and maybe only half as painful, but ten times more aggressive. Certainly there's also no reason to overlook the mosquito game in a swamp state. There's the usual North American black widows and brown recluses, and while generally harmless, there is something deeply primeval about walking into a three-foot-wide spiral web with a 5-inch leg-span orb weaver in the middle of it.
Vertebrate-wise, there are the aforementioned alligators, and way down south a saltwater croc occasionally turns up; then there are the alligator snapping turtles around as well. The Florida panther is endangered to the point of near extinction, but it does exist. There are also black bears and coyotes. The Eastern diamondbacks and water moccasins are to be avoided, and remember your rhymes to tell the coral snakes from the king snakes. The pythons and monkeys are invasive species and limited in range, but always be ready if in the woods or the swamp. Oh, right, I was more of a freshwater Floridian, but there are also the sharks and barracudas.
Beyond hungry fish, the ocean also has jellyfish, red tide, and rip currents, and of course that's where the hurricanes come from, LOL.
More seriously, while little of this has an impact on everyday life, growing up in a climate and environment like that does affect your outlook on what's dangerous and what's tolerable. I'm a pretty typical nerd type, but my wife still gets "Florida man" triggered every once in a while by behavior or attitudes that feel completely normal to me.
While the orb weavers and Argiope spiders are certainly a shock, it's really the Brown Huntsman spiders (American version of the classic Clock Spider) that can instill that fight or flight response when they run at'chya. I love spiders to death and always enjoy saving them from my house, but the first time I saw one of those guys in my apartment, my legs absolutely turned to jello.