Gross. I've never seen one in the flesh, but it's comforting to know that they live all over North America, so maybe I'll get to run into one some time.
I was at a 4th of July party about 10 years ago, on a deck overlooking a large creek in a very wooded area. It was already a rather buggy experience, but then a male Dobson fly just like this one buzzed everyone on the deck and people shit themselves. We drunkenly taunted it with a shoe lace.. it was cool to see it feign toughy with those mandibles, and attempt to intimidate us. Nice try, fly!
Those guys have a really sad life-cycle. They live as larvae (the nasty little hellgrammite) in water for a few years, then they pupate into this magnificent creature and die in 7 days.
Thank gawd I saw this! I caught one of these once when it was flying around! I thought it was a mantis, and when I saw those pincers in front and it was angling it's ass-end around to spray at me I flipped my shit and threw it back intop the air.
Imagine seeing one of these for the first time when you are ten years old and using the only crapper in a run-down campground in the middle of the night.
The sound the wings made just before it landed on my face were the worst part.
Nowadays I think they're cool as hell, but at the time it was horrifying.
I was but a lad myself when I first saw one. I was climbing in the orchard just after sunset and brushed against the susurrant wings of the dobsonfly. Against the bark of the apple tree it was almost invisible but for those wings.
I caught it, of course, but in the process discovered that along with the enormous pincer-like horns, the male dobsonfly also has powerful mandibles. Strong enough to draw blood.
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