Chrissy Teigen has many talents — but identifying insects is not one of them. On Wednesday, July 25, the model, 32, shared a video of herself and daughter Luna, 2, playing a little game called “What’s this bug?”
time for another game of “what’s this bug!?”! pic.twitter.com/hwCAPLB2vv
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 26, 2018
In the clip posted on Twitter, the tiny creature rests on Teigen’s arm. “What is this Luna?” she asks, to which the toddler replies: “A bug!”
“Is he a nice bug?” wonders the Cravings: Hungry for More cookbook author. “Do you want to give him a kiss?”
The model captioned the post, “I swear to god if one of you tells me this is a deadly bug I will vomit.”
Teigen’s fans quickly pointed out that Luna most likely leaned in to smooch a tarantula hawk. And while they aren’t deadly, they are very dangerous. Biologist Justin O. Schmidt, who was stung by one, described the pain as “instantaneous, electrifying, excruciating, and totally debilitating,” in his book The Sting of the Wild.
According to the Natural History Museum, the tarantula hawks are a species of spider wasp and are “fairly docile unless provoked.” Spiders are left paralyzed by the venom, but humans just suffer about five minutes of discomfort, per Schmidt.
Teigen can’t believe her bug was capable of such things. “Oh my god but he was so nice,” she tweeted. “Guys I think he is one of the good ones.”
On Thursday, Teigen responded to the wrath of the parenting police, who criticized her for putting Luna in danger. “Oh dear here comes the fun,” began the Lip Sync Battle cohost. “Okay hold I not hold potentially deadly creatures? no. Should I do it around my daughter? Super no. But it crawled on me and seemed injured, and well, not angry, not scary. (And I’m normally super freaked (remember house centipede???)”
Teigen revealed that she put the insect“down gently” and he scurried away. She noted that maybe it was a “reincarnated relative” or her and husband John Legend’s bulldog Puddy who died in March.
Meanwhile, Teigen shared with fans that “actual entomologists are divided about” whether or not it was a tarantula hawk. “Either way, it was a um . . . ballsy move,” she tweeted. “I Blame the heat AND MY WARM, KIND HEART.”
