Scorpions, Spiders and Snakes, Oh My!

Today a mysterious parcel arrived courtesy of the wonderful BFPO system. It was addressed to my four year old son. After a bit of head-scratching and box shaking we concluded it was a prize from a competition we entered through BFBS’ very own Room 785 Childrens’ channel. My boy was very excited, what could it be? Paper and packaging were rapidly torn and scattered throughout the living room and what was revealed was....a Bug Hunting Explorer Kit!!! My son was apoplectic with excitement. My heart sank.
Now normally, I am all for encouraging my offspring to explore their local environment, but back in the UK it is a different matter. In the typical English Country Garden are such delights as placid earthworms, fluttering butterflies, dopey woodlice and harmless little spiders. The worst encounter you are likely to have are with a wasp with issues or a stag beetle who got up on the wrong side of bed that morning. Not so in Cyprus – here a whole selection of terrifying and frankly dangerous creepy-crawlies await.
When you first arrive at your quarter in Akrotiri, the local HIVE and Housing Office supply an information pack to peruse. As you sit down with your cuppa on the standard-issue sofa (designed in a way that the cushions continually slide off the main frame in an alarmingly flammable manner), you flick cheerfully through leaflets titled “Travel & Visitors”, “DIY & Electrical”, “Supermarkets & Shopping” etc, all packed with loads of hints and tips to make your stay in Cyprus an enjoyable one. However, reader beware, for lurking at the back is a horrific tome entitled “Creepy Crawlies”. When you encounter this info sheet, I suggest you prepare yourself before delving into its pages of horror. DO NOT read before bedtime unless you have a penchant for nightmares. Also, ensure you are curled up on the sofa with your feet off the ground , trust me, for as the terrifying tale unfolds, you will instinctively retreat to a foetal position for fear that whatever creatures lurk beneath your chair will drag you to your doom by your ankles. And woe betide any family pet whose tail accidentally brushes over your feet as you read....
So, in this info-sheet-of doom, you will learn all about the less welcome residents of Cyprus – Mosquitoes, Cockroaches, Scorpions, nasty biting Centipedes, Brown Widow Spiders (the slightly less venomous cousin of the Black Widow) and Tarantulas. And that’s not even mentioning the snakes!!Now, if you complete your reading of this paper without either violently evacuating your lunch or packing up your few belongings and catching the first plane back home then I salute you. I know I spent the first few weeks of my life in Cyprus walking around the house with my eyes pinned on the carpet just in case my poor feet encountered imminent death-by-scorpion, and getting out of bed each morning involved an Olympic leap calculated to be just a few inches further than the hairy-legged reach of the man-eating arachnids that obviously dwelled beneath the divan.
Eventually, however, I settled down from my phobias and reconciled myself with the fact that the insects of Cyprus and I would have to form a truce if I was to maintain my sanity and they were to live a full life not prematurely ended under one of my boots. To tip the odds in my favour, I got myself a cat, which proved to be a fatal error. It turns out my cute little Cyprus Tabby is most adept at catching and cornering enormous cockroaches and humungous spiders, but is less talented at killing, usually leaving the prey stunned in the corner of a room, ready to wake and pounce the moment I enter. But, that aside, I am slowly learning to tolerate the copious entomological wonders that set up home under my roof. Hardly a day passes when I am not confronted by a cockroach as big as my thumb either scuttling across the kitchen floor, hanging from the shower curtain as I emerge, wet and naked in search of a towel, or even grinning up at me from the Chinese wok that I was just about to fill with vegetables for dinner. And now only my immediate neighbours hear my blood-curdling screams, as opposed to the whole street, so that’s a definite improvement.Other fauna that have passed my doorstep include the mahoosive ants that traversed my carpet in a military line, the scarily large (can you see a theme here?) hornets that drowsily dangle their legs inches from your scalp, mossies the size of bluebottles that bite you through your jeans and the nest of Brown Widow spiders that took up residence in the cupboard under the stairs. And then there was the snake that slithered into the garden. After a mass evacuation of our back yard, we observed the slippery character from behind the safety of our French windows and concluded it was one of the harmless varieties, not the evil Blunt-Nosed Viper that can be found by less fortunate souls. We were happy to adopt a ‘live and let live’ policy in this case until we discovered it could climb trees.
That altered the rules of the game radically and my 8 year old girl at this point reached an unprecedented level of hysteria at the thought of one dropping off a branch onto her head. So it was up to Mummy and Daddy, armed with a rake and a spade, to rid our garden of this uninvited guest. Around 90 minutes later, the threat had been neutralized, following an hour and a half of shrieking, leaping and beating of tree branches. I have since been told that Cypriots consider it very unlucky to kill a non-venomous snake but, frankly, I’ll take my chances.
Besides, the adrenalin buzz of holding my quarry aloft at the end of a very long rake, unleashed my inner Great White Hunter. Only momentarily, mind you.
Asides from the kind of beastie that wants to kill you, Cyprus is also home to an amazing array of fascinating and beautiful creatures. Amongst the pines of the Troodos mountains can be found the most colourful and awesome butterflies, there are blue and green beetles of every shape and size, bright red firebugs and incredibly noisy cicadas. A drive with the window open through the nearby roads flanked by orange and lemon groves can be almost deafening as the thousands of rattling bugs warble their way through the day. In addition, we have been host to Monty the Praying Mantis and ‘his’ 30 odd siblings that burst out of an egg case I found attached to my office window. They lived quite happily in a glass aquarium in my living room until they started displaying cannibalistic tendencies and we decided to humanely liberate the survivors.
So, come to Cyprus unless you’re arachnophobic, ophidiophobic or none too partial to cockroach infestation. There’s a warm welcome from creatures with six legs, eight legs or no legs! (the two-legged inhabitants are, on the whole, pretty harmless though).
Right, I’ve gotta go, my four year old is looking rather excited with something he’s trapped in his Bug Hunting Explorer Kit. I’ll be approaching him with a cheerful, enthusiastic Mummy-smile on my face and a can of “white death” bug-spray concealed behind my back!