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Dangerous animals and insects in Japan

Jukina

先輩
17 Apr 2006
26
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We are going to travel to Japan next month.

Are there dangerous animals and insects in Japan? Leathal ones? What are they?

Yours

J
 
Jukina said:
We are going to travel to Japan next month.

Are there dangerous animals and insects in Japan? Leathal ones? What are they?

Yours

J

Depends on where you are travelling to here. There are poisonous snakes in some parts of Japan but the anti-venom is readily available if one is biten, plus there are any number of poisonus fishes and sea life.


Oh I forgot there are some "dangerous" 2 legged animals here as well, but they are probably more scarce than the poisonus snakes.😌 (joke)
 
Hachiro said:
Oh I forgot there are some "dangerous" 2 legged animals here as well, but they are probably more scarce than the poisonus snakes.😌 (joke)
Must be whatever the Yamumba have morphed into! I always hear Darth Vader's theme whenever I see them prowling the streets in their minivans. Checking the 'meat' out they are, and that's scary!

Hairy brown long legged uglies are always disturbing, not lethal, just very very disturbing. Look out for 10 cm centipedes in accomodations near bamboo groves.
 
You probably have absolutely nothing to worry about, but the sake of science, I will answer to the best of my ability.

Japan has bears (if you encounter one, I'd be amazed, though), monkeys (which are usually fine, but don't get too close!), wild boar (again, usually nice, but they can kill), giant bees called suzume bachiツ (usually not a threat), giant centipedes (and I mean HUGE!), and that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

There are probably, as Hachiro pointed out, poisonous snakes and spiders, too. I know the spiders can get to be the size of your hand out in the countryside, as I have seen them!
 
It would really help to know where in Japan you are travelling to, for example the snakes that I mentioned are in Okinawa and some of the outlying islands that make up the prefecture. The snakes are called "habu"

HabuJPG-1.jpg
 
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That is a link to the "other" dangerous insects that live in Okinawa, including the centipede.

In Okinawa there is also a slight risk from catching Japanese encephalitis, from mosquitos (Nihon no En), people here regularly get immunizations for that, it doesn't occur that often but it is something to be aware of.
20000817Hazardous20Animal20Life20of20Oki-1.jpg

20000817Hazardous20Animal20Life20of20Oki-2.jpg
 
Originally Posted by Mikawa Ossan
I know the spiders can get to be the size of your hand out in the countryside,
as I have seen them!
Oh, you never saw one until you came to Japan? They are scary, aren't they? They usually don't have any poison though.

Since some people have already mentioned snakes and insects, I can only think of a clear blue colord jelly fish that stung me several years ago. It hurt so bad but the pain was gone the next day.

Oh, by the way, there are some poisonous fish called fugu (balloon fish) and mushrooms here. Their poison is really deadly but unless you eat them, I guess they could do no harm. We have restaurants that serve fugu, but only the cook with a special kind of licence is allowed to cook them and they know what part of fugu meat has a poison, so if you have a chance to try one, go ahead and enjoy.
 
Thanks, folks! It seems Japan is very safe country. Thats good. I will travel in route: Nagoya - Miyajima - Hiroshima - Kyoto - Himeji - Nara - Tokyo - Nagano - Takayama - Nagoya. So, very typical tourist route. Anyhow would like to see these places. I will come with very humble mind. We westernes were still at trees when there was allready high culture in Japan. ;)
 
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