South Jersey is famous for 'em...

Stupid as they come too. Swat them and they get stunned for a few minutes. I've watched them fly straight into buckets of oil and drown.

Worst thing to do is squash them. Apparently they release a scent that attracts more of them.

 

These are the bugs that I can’t stand... centipedes. I have a vivid memory of stepping out of the shower once as a kid and grabbing a clean towel out of the cabinet and one of these demon spawns was hiding in the towel. To this day I still check both sides of the towel every single time I get out of the shower.

But, interestingly enough, like dragonflies, they are actually quite beneficial as they eat all the other less desirable bugs.

 

I used to spray em as soon as I heard them coming with whatever I had. They would fall straight down.
We used to catch the white dot ones, put em in a cup and bet.

 

Grab 'em by the antenna and if you hold them up to a leather glove they'll try and take chunks out of it.

 

Badminton racket.

 

Mosquito lover.

Actually I remember using badminton rackets during the Great Gypsy Moth Explosion of 1981. The things were as ubiquitous as snowflakes during a blizzard. We would literally close our eyes and take a random swing with a badminton racket and always get at least five or six of em, sometimes as many as eight with one swing.

 

The smaller ones are probably damsel flies. The easiest way to tell is damsels fold their wings when they land, dragons do not.

 

Dragon fly

 

My younger brother was also scared to death of them. He'd come in the house screaming that the "helicopter bees" were after him.