The most dangerous pests

What are the most dangerous pests?

Some of the most dangerous pests in Arkansas and Oklahoma include scorpions, rats, certain kinds of snakes, brown recluse spiders, and yellow jackets. While running across one of these pests once in a lifetime can be scary, dealing with any of these pests living and breeding in or around your home and property can be downright risky or even life threatening.

Striped Bark Scorpion: These scorpions grow to about 2.5 inches as adults and are yellowish brown with dark brown bands and a brown or black stinger on the end of its curved tail. While the venom that these scorpions deliver is not highly toxic, their stings can be extremely painful and can cause serious medical issues for a young child or a person with allergies.

Rats: Rats can spread several dangerous diseases that can cause significant health problems for people and other animals. Diseases caused by rats include tularemia, rat bite fever, salmonella, plague, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), and hantavirus. Rats spread diseases through several ways including their waste materials (feces, urine, and saliva), their nesting material, bites and scratches from an infected rodent, and even simple skin-to-skin contact with a person or other animal.

Snakes: Venomous snakes in Arkansas and Oklahoma include the western diamondback rattlesnake, the timber rattlesnake, the Texas coral snake, the copperhead, and the cottonmouth. Most of these snakes are tan colored and have patterns on their bodies that help them blend into their surroundings, so it can be easy to miss them when they are hiding in plain sight in your yard.

Brown recluse spiders: Brown recluse spiders are most often found hiding in dark corners of garages, sheds, and attics, as well as in old piles of wood. Their bites can cause distressing medical problems such as necrosis (death) of the skin where the bite was received. Necrotizing ulcers can occur at bite sites, causing significant soft tissue damage that may take several months to heal and leave deep scars.

Yellow jackets: Yellow jackets are a type of hornet that can behave especially aggressively when threatened. Yellow jackets tend to build large nests with high population counts, which adds to the risks that yellow jackets can pose to humans and other animals. When yellow jackets feel their nest is threatened, they can swarm and attack, delivering painful stings in rapid succession with their sewing machine needle-like stingers.

For help with dangerous pests, contact West Termite, Pest & Lawn.