Is there any invertebrate creepier than the house centipede (AKA “thousand-legger”)? I grew up in Upstate New York, and had never encountered one of these until I first moved to southeastern PA around 1993. The first time I saw one skitter across the living room while I was watching TV, I thought for sure I’d seen some kind of demon–a lesser demon, granted, but a demon nonetheless.
Turns out it’s just Scutigera coleoptrata, a fast-moving type of centipede that lives mostly within human homes and eats spiders, roaches, bedbugs, silverfish, and other small insect-types that also invade human dwellings. Doesn’t sound like much, I know, and if you’ve been fortunate enough never to have encountered one, you have no idea just how disconcerting the sight of fifteen pairs of legs moving in a coordinated wave can be as this sizeable critter slashes across a floor or wall.
Since we got our dog, a Rhodesian ridgeback mix, we haven’t had much problem with these little guys. We just say “Copper, bug!” and he goes into full-on hunting dog mode, enthusiastically sniffing out the centipede before crushing it to death with his paws, and then typically tossing it around a bit before eating it. Unfortunately, he’s recently taken to retching — and I mean, retching — after eating one, so we’re not letting him do that any more. I looked up information on the house centipede, and it appears that their venom is not dangerous to house pets, though their bite is recorded as painful. After finding a close-up photo of a house centipede face, all I can say is yikes. I’m not surprised their bite is painful, check out those fangs!
(Photo after the jump)
If you do have these around, you might like to know that they are generally considered beneficial (see the list of undesirables that they are doing away with?) and that a concerted effort to kill off house centipedes might reveal a bug problem of another sort that you never knew you almost had… That, and their bites are apparently really painful to people, too. At least as painful as a bee sting.
On a related note, my search for information and photos of Scutigera coleoptrata led me to Dope on the Slope, a pretty cool Brooklyn-based blog of invertebrates and photography. It’s not many blogs that really catch my interest, so I figured I’d give this one a plug.
oh dude, yeah. I grew up in western new york state and had the traumatizing experience of seeing one of these monsters (non-affectionately nicknamed, eyebrow) race across the floor of my apartment. I thought it was a rat. I wish it had been a rat. I’ve never been the same.
dude i was sitting here at my computer, and my friend told me i had to come look at this “THING”!!!! lol… ok so i go in the bathroom and i was like WTF!!!! we thought it was a species unknown to man… he was like wtf i was taking a piss, AND I SEE THIS!!!! so we captured it in a jar… and put a plate over it and tapped it down… and we are going to keep it, feed it bugs and such, his name is E.T
TX!
oh by the way hes a very BIG PUSSY!!! we put him in there with 2 ants, and 3 spiders… so far the ants as we call them “savage 1 and 2″ they riped off E.T’s antenna and is now gnawing on his leg…
I noticed these bugs a crawling around my home about 2 months ago…i’ve killed about 4 of them, all different sizes. It does sound like they are helpful (Oh boy do i hate spiders) but do u know of a way to get rid of them? They have too many legs…….I guess im prejudice against them for that…i really dont want to wake up and see one crawling on me……
those things are fucking CREEPY.
Everyone,
I saw one for the first time today, and let me tell you, it looks just like something straight out of Men In Black! It’s like a mutated cross between a centipede, a silverfish, and a spider! And it was freaking HUGE!!!
Anyway, I just stumbled across this article and thought I’d leave my 2 cents.
Thanks,
Mandy
Dude back when i was in school wich was like a year or so ago i would see those things all over the place they creeped the hell out of me.. no one knew what they were my science teacher coulden’t even tell us they are CREEEEEEEPY
My family calls these things million-leggers, cuz 15 pairs of legs doesn’t sound like it when you look at them. They are ALL OVER my basement, where I like to paint and draw and stuff. I was actually online looking up a weird spider I found down there while I was painting my sister, but I guess as long as we have THESE freaky bugs in our house, I won’t have to worry about that spider for long! LOLZ! I hate them, though. They ARE like demons. They seem to always pop up at just the wrong times, like the first one I saw I was talking to my sister about a terrible car accident I saw. It ran over my foot, and I looked down to see what it was, I saw this inch-and-a-half long “million-legged” bug zooming across my room and up the room and scuttling up the wall. I don’t have to tell you that I screamed my head off. LOLZ!
Oh. my. GOODNESS!! I just saw my first one by almost stepping on it in my kitchen!! I was screaming my head off!! Every way I was trying to jump to get away was the way he was trying to run!! EWW!! I am so grossed out right now!! What’s even worse is my Fiance just told me he saw one the other day but didn’t want to tell me about it!! =(
I aree with Mandy about their appearance… silverfish/centipede look. Most of you seem to be in NY, but I’m in TX. Most of them are very small & fast; the biggest i’ve seen so far has been about 1″. That’s big enough for me and I hope I don’t see an larger ones. I guess i’ll try RAID or something.
So good to know I’m not the only one freaked out by the monsters. The only centipedes I knew are red, small and rather cute. I encountered one of this beasts when visiting friends in the states and had NO idea what it was, just that I would not sleep in the same room with it. No way!
My wife and I moved from northern California to southern Missouri about 2 years ago and have found an astounding amount of entomological “anomalies”, everyday almost we see a kind of bug new to us. I came across this particular creepy little bastard about 7 mos ago crawling around in my bathroom sink. Evolution is neat and very often it’s very strange. ;^}
OMG!!! im German so my gramma is verry bad! i think they look like a mutated cross between a scorpion, (german) Kellerassel) and a fache like a Grasshopper ;P . Wuah iii i´m verry happy that we haven´t so ….. animals in germany! Really!!!
I have a bunch of them at my place, I kill a couple a month. But till recently I have been waking up with some bites on me. I wasn’t sure from what insect though, there are 2 penetrations on each site, I though it was spiders but the distance of the penetrations are too far apart, unless it’s a giant spider.
Now that I look at the close up image of the head of the house centipede I am sure that it’s them. It itches like hell with some minor inflammation. But honestly, I would rather a bite from the house centipede than spiders, especially the Guitar Spider, they literally rot your skin permanently. So keep eating them spiders centipedes!!!
Are you kidding me? there are a ton of people on here recently!! are we being invaded… I’m southern California and always had terminex until the economy got bad and we canceled about three months ago… guess i know that we were getting our monies worth as i have been in this house for two years and never see anything…. the one i saw was more like three inches… i actually grabbed it in a tissue and ran it all the way out to the garage garbage as i was afraid to leave it in the house garbage… it was HUGE and looked like it could have stood up a few inches off the ground it had tried to stretch… wicked!!
omg, we just bought a house in july, and we’ve seen A LOT of these since we’ve moved in! we usually see them in the kitchen or bathroom- i assume they like moisture? they really freak me out, i actually get chills when i see them. i never knew they would bite, though.
i have been trying to figure out what they were, thanks for posting the info!
Dude, I was doing a search on Jessica Alba and found this. These things SCARE THE SHIT out of me. I’m not even kidding, I’ve been wondering for like ten years what the hell they were. Someone in high school told me once that it was a cockroach eater. I didn’t know they BITE people! OMG. I’m so getting pesticides.
NOT COOL.
I may have nightmares…actually I already do have nightmares about these evil bastards…ick *shutters*
just saw my first one tonight in my friend’s dorm room. scared the living shiz outta me. we named him fred and stuck him in the freezer. he’s now dead fred
can someone please come over.. and kill the monster… hes still in the kitchen.. and im really thirsty but too terrified to go in there…
~dying from dehydration
I’ve been wondering for months what these ugly things are. I encountered them many months ago, a baby one I think. I poked it with my finger (it was early, I just woke up D:) because I thought it was the rubber part of a bobby pin that had fallen off, but when it wriggled away…I just wasn’t the same.
There was one in my bathtub nearly fifteen minutes ago and I flushed it down the drain with some scalding hot water. They scare the shit out of me
OH BY ALL THAT IS HOLY WHAT AN ABOMINATION OF ALL LIVING CREATURES!!! My girlfriend and I were watching TV on the couch when that thing came running at us from under our furnace. It was 2 and half inches long, not including antennas. It ran toward us freakishly fast and we killed it. We got online to look up what the hell it was, never seen one before, we live in Michigan. I hope they don’t live in a nest. We just moved into this house that was remodeled with no resident for awhile and have been having horrible bug problems. My girlfriend was attacked by a spider the other day and a bunch of ants cornered her.
D: i just saw one in my bathroom a few days ago my father saying up and down itsa silver fish but i know it was this it had muliple legs im terrified they bite i had just gotten out of a shower i was questiong what it was to were its 6:25 am i really need to go to the bathroom but i wont im there is a spider on the cealing D: so yes duouble wammy i can’t stand living in this old house
eww omg they scare the freakin shitt outta me! i saw one, one morning wen i was getting rdy for school yrs ago for the first time i was going pee and i jumped up and ran outta the bathroom screaming! they r some scarey mother fuckers! I always thought they were silverfish but i guess i was wrong!! they bite!? i didnt know that! oh god eww im getting creeped out just thinking about it now! :[
I live in Tennessee and just saw one of the things for the first time!! OMG these are the creepiest things ive ever saw!!! Slugs creep me out and this was next to it and just had to run away!! It was outside on the side of the house. It better stay there!!! Just came across this site i was looking to see what the hell that horrible thing was!! Didnt know they stinged! not like i was gonna touch it to see!
well i must say that today was a sad day for most wannabe alpha military males such as myself! i am stationed here in va and we go to the field often, well the house i am staying in has not been lived in for some time now. came home (barracks) from a long day in the 110 weather to see this 2.5 inch bastard on my wall above my rack (pillow) i jumped up on my tippy toes and began pacing like a school girl tried to catch it and it JUMPED onto my pillow then ran somewhere under the mattress which i can not get to. there are no more beds to sleep on and to hell with the floor. and honestly before finding this sight i thought i found some new creature and was going to be able to name it and the hole nine. anyhow any word on what kind of bug spray or bomb can kill it?? would be militarily (word?) appreciated if an answer could be found —nick —-hmngomez@gmail.com