House Centipede
Andrew Lin takes care of our Scutigera coleoptrata (house centipede) photo needs again, this time with a nice side view. It puts me in mind of a Viking warship. I wonder if there’s a little drummer on the back of the centipede keeping all the legs in time…
This is an adult house centipede. We know this because it has 15 pairs of legs. House centipedes are born with 2 pairs of legs. They gain a pair of legs with their first molt, and then gain two pairs of legs with each subsequent molt until adulthood.
Just a reminder to everybody, while these guys are way high on the creep factor, they’re extremely beneficial bugs! These little guys are ravenous predators of spiders, ants, cockroaches, termites, bedbugs, and silverfish. They are venomous, but their fangs are so small they are usually incapable of penetrating human skin. Even if they do, the venom is mild, comparable in pain to a mild bee sting and in itchiness to a mosquito bite.
I know, I know, you think I’m crazy, don’t you? Well, maybe I’m not crazy enough. In Japan, S. coleoptrata are called “gejigeji” and they are sold in pet stores. NOW who’s crazy?
So much for being on an even keel again with posting.... completely overwhelmed IRL right now.
JFargo said,
August 30, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
While I am getting over my fear of spiders, to a degree at least, these house centipedes still freak me out. The word makes my skin crawl.
Still, great photo, Andrew! You definitely have a way with bug photos!
CyberLizard said,
August 31, 2008 @ 7:35 am
I’ve gotten to really like spiders, I’ve even gotten to have a *tiny* appreciation for roaches, but these critters… It would take ALOT to get me to cuddle up with these.
btw, did you change the settings for comments? It made me create an account before it would let me post a comment.
David Brady said,
August 31, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
CyberLizard: I did. I upgraded the site, and while I was at it I tightened the posting restrictions. InsectPOD has been getting several dozen spam comments a day. Almost all of them get caught by the site’s spam filtering, but about 2 messages a month get through to the site and I have to remove them by hand.
Oh, oops–I posted a news item about this, but about three hours after the upgrade I changed something on the database that broke it and had to restore from a backup that didn’t have that post in it. I’ll put it back up again.
At any rate, I apologize for the inconvenience.
ziyda said,
August 31, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
This is nice to see; I haven’t been able to shoot one yet, because they move so quickly! Very cool.