By Mia80 18 January, 2011
Last night I discovered my dog franticly digging a hole in my backyard. It was dark, so I told him off, brought him inside and left it.
Today I investigated my new crater, to find a small tunnel in the wall of it.
The opening is about the size of a twenty cent piece.
What could make a hole like that? Is it nasty and how do I get rid of it?
I don’t want to loose my overly curious dog, to his stoopid curiosity.
Cheers
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Uh oh, you got rats.
probably a spider, heaps of them tunneling in my yard at the moment and some of them are pretty massive
Most likely a Black Prince Cicada grub.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_prince_cicada
At my place it’s spiders doing the tunnelling. Not sure what species though. They look after all the bugs in the garden and don’t come into my house unlike those scary huntsmans!
Yeah a cicada grub, I’d watch it as I saw one take a dog once
There was a post a while ago about the number of wolf spiders around at the moment. It sounds like one of their burrows.
Probably a snake, possibly of the trouser genus.
Pixies.
I noticed such a hole in my veggie garden last night, massive, with the crater sides. Is it a cicada or a giant spider?
I’ve seen Dune – might be an immature sandworm.
EvanJames said :
It used to be a giant spider, but then a seriously tough cicada opened a can of whoop-ass, and took the spider’s home. If I were you I’d evacuate the premises.
If you hear the sound of crickets in the early evening, more than likely you have Mole Crickets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_cricket
It’s Hobbits’es
One possibility is a large beetle from the scarab family. I found a kind of Rhinoceros beetle in my son’s sandpit recently, in a tunnel about the size mentioned. A ways down, had to dig for it…
They are not uncommon especially if you use mulch.
These particular beetles (Xylotrupes species) ‘squeak’ quite loudly when they feel threatened, which might explain your dog’s interest Mia80. All bluff, they are totally harmless (the sound is actually their wing covers being rubbed on their abdomen).
Have a close look at the hole/tunnel. If there are no signs of threads, it is unlikely to be a spider.
Best written and most intruiging subject heading so far in all of ’11… (IMHO)
Ze Germans.
maniac said :
Walk without rhythm, and it won’t attract the worm.
(But if you walk without rhythm, you’ll never learn…)
Wolf spider.
or piskies…
Thanks for all the input…
Rats/mice wouldn’t surprise me (we have chickens – who make surprisingly good mousers themselves)
The holes are too large for wolf spiders (we have a couple of those and know their regular haunts)
We also have a few mole crickets. We’ve seen them getting around at night, and wondered what these truly fugly bugs were. So thanks for the education, sesmiaggi.
Nobody came up with anything that terrifies me, so thanks for putting my mind to rest.