Everyone is saying they’re harmless, but we read house centipedes cam leave painful bites. I’ve never been bitten, that I know of, but when plagued with centipedes, I’d sometimes wake up with one of two types of mysterious bug bites: itchy, and painful. I know from prior experience that most North American spider bites are only ever itchy, so I always put the painful ones down to house centipedes. I can’t prove it, though. Here are the facts I do know about house centipedes, from empiricle evidence:
They like damp. You’ll find them in damp spots, drains, around toilets, around damp areas in basements, etc. Not exclusively, but predominantly.
They wage a secret war with spiders. Sometimes the spider wins, but usually the centipede does unless it gets trapped by a web.
Alive, they move like the wind. Shockingly, alarmingly fast.
When smacked, they explode into air and legs. So many legs, and not much else.
Despite reports that they control other bugs, they are useless against real nuisance bugs like soldier and stink bugs. And for fly control, spiders do a better job. The only real thing we ever saw centipedes hunting were spiders.
Small glue traps work really well at controlling them. I caution against large glue traps, as they might catch small rodentia, and if you want to know true horror, find a YouTube video of a mouse caught in a glue trap.
Centepides actually only have 6 legs. You can see the six real legs if you look closely at a picture. The other “legs” work like legs, but are not actually legs.
As far as I’m aware, if it’s got upwards of 350 legs, those are called millipedes, not centipedes.
Also, I’ve never in my life seen either a centipede or a millipede with legs anywhere near that long, so my mind is still stuck on WTF is that damn thing?
Any which way you go, I’d say kill it with fire! Even though it’s already dead, I wouldn’t wanna take any chances if it happens to have eggs in it or possibly a parasite or anything…
The difference between centipedes and millipedes actually has to do with how many pairs of legs they have per body segment. Centipedes have one pair per segment, millipedes have two pairs per segment. The centipede with 354 legs is indeed a centipede (: the millipede with the most legs actually tops out around 750 legs! Pill *millipedes seem to be the smallest millipede with only 14-42 legs!
Also, if you google pics of centipedes, there is indeed a species with terrifyingly long legs just like this picture, the house centipede.
Huh, interesting. Well today I learned a little more about creepy-crawlies than I expected. Also, a pill bug is considered a type of millipede? Well hell, I never would have guessed that.
I was actually very surprised to learn about the pill bug as well, if I’d known they were millipedes as a kid I would not have found them so cute and fun lol
No, a pill bug is not a type of millipede, they’re actually crustaceans, and not closely related.
Pill bugs used to be one of the few exclusively terrestrial crustaceans, but now almost all insects are classified as crustaceans, so, i’d have to double check the phylogenies.
Oh? Okay then, well either way I’ve learned something new today. Interesting, not like it’s going to change the price of weed in Colorado for my daily life, but thanks for sharing. 👍
No, a pill bug is not a type of millipede, they’re actually crustaceans, and not closely related.
Pill bugs used to be one of the few exclusively terrestrial crustaceans, but now almost all insects are classified as crustaceans, so, i’d have to double check the phylogenies.
I’d say a small asteroid impact will take care of it. Something about the size of the tanushka event seems appropriate. Just be sure to pre-warn all of the neighbours within a 500 mile radius.
That’s why you always find dead garden millipedes curled up in a spiral. The odd number of legs makes them walk in circles until they die from it. “True” story.
Generally bug bites are more often from beetles than centipedes or spiders, meaning centipedes and spiders generally lower how many bug bites you’d be getting.
Dude, what kind of beetles do you have around you‽ Where I live, I’m pretty confident there are no biting beetles - at least, none that can do any harm to humans.
You have way more beetles than you think you do, and far more beetles than you believe can bite. If you can find a spider, there are dozens of beetles that it’s feeding on, in an over simplified way.
You’re team spider unless you live in Australia and like all animals in Australia the spiders are no exception.Spiders kill, spiders eat burbs, spiders fly. Yup they fly, it’s nightmare material.
I’ve also been bitten by a centipede in bed while sleeping and woken up in so much pain I threw up(#australiathings). How did I know it was a centipede? It was still in the bed. They are not nice. But I’m still all for them eating the spiders.
Your bullet points sound like an RTS (real time strategy) game’s description of a unit. I would prefer neither around me, let them wage war (or set up home) elsewhere preferably.
You see, I think spiders are incredibly interesting animals. But I really can’t look at them. I guess my Mum screaming every time something with more than 4 legs appeared had a lasting impact on me. So having one next to me while I sleep is nightmare stuff to me.
When I was younger and I had roommates I hated it when they killed the house spiders. It was the reason we had so many other bugs. Once that roommate moved out, the rest of us stopped killing the spiders and after a burst of spiders the rest of the bugs were gone. House bugs are very creepy but they keep the bad house bugs away. Like bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs and the evolutionary niche they’ve crawled out from.
Honestly yeah, actually the building I previously moved out of had both. So I just kept very tidy by keeping everything they’d be attracted to sealed and away and left the cockroaches alone. It was a lot though, every night throw out all the garbage. Seal and put away all the food, if food can not be easily sealed put it in the fridge. Clean up all the crumbs and any drops of water on the floors, counters shelfs, ect. Lightly Borax the sinks, toilet, tubs. Then wake up, collect the ones that died overnight, clean up and go about my day. Oh and make sure you take apart then make your bed every morning and night to make sure nothing else crawled in there. They were never more than a small nuisance and I never had bedbugs compared to my neighbors. Yay adorable housing… So glad to be outta there.
I know they’re generally harmless (they eat bugs and won’t bite you if you leave it alone) but they make my skin crawl and I can’t help but kill them with extreme prejudice when I find one.
Just so people who see them aren’t worried, they don’t just eat bed bugs. They will eat basically any insect that is smaller than they are up to and including spiders. I even saw one eating a yellowjacket once. So having house centipedes in your home doesn’t mean that you have bedbugs.
Actually Huntsman’s don’t! They’re the big hairy brown ones that you’ve seen carrying mice on social media. They’re non-venemous and their whole schtick is that they run to catch their prey. They’re incredibly creepy but when I see one I cup+paper it and put it outside. It’ll probably find it’s way back in eventually but not before taking out a few insects in the process.
They only have six legs, so very uncool. Also, they’re jumpscare experts. Chillin’ on the frickin’ ceiling, in packs of toilet paper, my dirty laundry bin… I despise them for it.
I’ve got regular silverfish in the bathroom, but gray silverfish (or paperfish as they are called here) in the rest of the house. Those things are larger and much more destructive, some found their way in my collection of sheet music… They literally eat their way through paper and even damage untreated wood, nasty critters. And worse, where ventilating your house helps against silverfish, it only seems to create even better living conditions for those buggers. I’d trade for house centipedes happily.
yeah it’s just zoomed in, discolored, and wet/squished. Poor thing. Theyre unnerving at first but once you get used to them you can think of them as eyelashes gliding around the floor.
I’m not sure about centipedes, but if what goes for woodlice goes for them, you need to cook them/fry them for a bit because they’re toxic if you don’t, but then they’re great.
Gee! I didn’t notice the spoons until you mentioned it, sorry! Must be a very small centipede then. Fully grown ones are about 10cm long, and they are very, very, very very fast. (But harmless)
Ah ok! havent seen them around here alive anywhere, maybe cause they re nightactive, as i read… The spoons are not too obvious in the pic, so understandable. Thank you again for all the info
House centipedes may look like some prehistoric creature from the depths of hell, but really they’re like spiders, they’re your friends - they kill and eat bugs. You just don’t see them as often because they’re terrified of humans and zoom away at light speed when they see you.
Might as well kill it then as they don’t survive well outside if at all. They are a good beneficial insect that will hunt and kill bad insects in and around your home.
Yeah, right now I got a big meaty spider with a neat little web up in my corner near the ceiling. She wants to chill there and eat flies and I’m cool with that. But the moment she starts getting frisky and scampering around the room is when she’s getting evicted. Rules be rules.
I’ve had multiple occasions where I was watching TV, and a goddamn spider slowly lowered itself (from the ceiling) to like 1ft in front of my face. Was real tiny, so very hard to see except at some angles where the backdrop provided enough contrast to see it and the single strand of web it dangled by. So it startled the shit out of me when I did see it.
This was always only when I was still living with my parents, and always in the living room. I’m all about letting certain spider-bros roam my place, eating up other insects, but only if I don’t have to: look at them, get close to them, touch them, or get stuck in their web.
You start pushing it, and slowly lowering yourself in front of my face while I’m watching Conan O’Brien at 1:30am? That relationship becomes strained.
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