The most misunderstood centipede! (House centipede)

This week we are looking into one of the most feared centipedes and it is purely based on its looks! Another reason why we can't judge a book by its cover.. The house centipede is an amazing hunter of all things we really don't want in our homes. 

 

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Music from Lofi Girl featuring:  Sebastian Kamae, Sleepermqne, and HM Surf

 

Transcript: 

 

Welcome to episode 62 of insects for fun! The weekly entomology podcast covering all things insect and arthropod! Oo that’s new… yup I have now opened the floodgates for all arthropods, and today we will be looking at just one of many oddballs commonly called a house centipede. 

 

House centipedes are a group of arthropods in the order scutigeromorpha which happens to be one of many centipedes, but these ones don’t resemble a centipede at all, and they actually look and share more similarities with insects such as full compound eyes, and long jointed legs. Compound eyes means that they can detect movement at incredible speeds, but their vision is actually super blurry. Imagine looking at a wall of monitors and each monitor is showing the same image. It’s super easy to notice when something is moving but you can forget about having a nice big clean image. And speaking of clean images.. the house centipede is definitely not a sight for the faint of heart, especially for those who are scared of creepy crawlies. Their bodies are only between 1 and 1.5 inches in length and slender, but they have 15 pairs of legs which are long and surround the entire body making them appear much larger. The hind legs are actually longer than the forelegs so they can overlap while running without getting tangled and females have two extremely long legs at the very back of their bodies which act as secondary antennae. Honestly if you’ve seen one before you’ll never forget how it looks because they’re really wild. They also happen to be incredibly fast, reaching speeds of 0.4 meters per second or 1.3 feet which is pretty good, and they can traverse almost any surface. There are 25 genera which means there are at least 25 species, but I honestly can’t say how many there are. The most well known species is Scutigera coleoptrata with Scutigera in reference to bear a shield and the Coleoptrata part is like coleoptera which is the order for Beetles because these centipedes have a thorax that’s kind of similar. 

 

But where did these things even come from? And where can you find them now? Well, house centipedes actually originated in the mediterranean, but are now commonly found throughout the world, and because they live in homes and close to humans it’s pretty easy for them to travel. That being said house centipedes didn’t just randomly appear in our homes.They started out in the wild like the roaches from last episode, and these guys prefer to live in damp, cool, and dark places like under logs, tree bark, rocks etc. They’re a nocturnal group and are rarely seen in daylight. I personally almost never see them in the wild, but I have encountered them in buildings. Actually the first time I saw one was in 4th grade at school. I had no idea what it was but it was so crazy looking to me that I really wanted a closer look. These things are incredibly fast though as I mentioned, and I had no such luck. 

Another feature to house centipedes which adds to their swiftness would be tracheal lungs. With these the centipede can breathe while it’s on the run! 

 

Okay so now we know where they started and where they dwell in nature, but why our homes? Well! You’ll be happy to know that these critters don’t care about your food, books, or furniture etc. The house centipede is a predator and prefers live food, which it has no problem catching by the way, and because of this you usually only encounter them in your home if you’ve got another problem… like roaches, bed bugs, silverfish etc. Having these guys around in your home is actually quite helpful and they can’t hurt us at all. Think of them as a creepy roomba for arthropod pests, but with a Turbo mod. Some people fear that the creatures can bite you and are venomous to us. But have no fear! They can’t do damage to us, and honestly they don’t want to either. House centipedes are shy, and even when handled won’t be aggressive towards you. That being said they do actually contain venom which is only potent enough for small arthropods like roaches. They can’t really bite either… These centipedes have two modified forelegs called forcipules, and they’re used to slow down prey that has been captured by their other legs. One article I read states that the centipedes wrangle their prey like cowboys using their legs as lassos to corral and catch their victims. She also mentioned that she handles them all the time for her research and has never once been attacked. You know actually something funny I’ve noticed is that the majority of my listeners are women! Are you surprised? I really do think men are more afraid to be honest, and a study done in 2019 found that out of 2,000 Americans surveyed a larger percentage of men claimed to be very afraid of insects. I'm pretty sure I haven’t said that before on the show but if I did, sorry. It’s actually hard to keep track of all the small pieces of information I’ve written and said when it’s just me doing this!

 

Anyway, house centipedes move around the world by hiding in furniture like rugs or even couches? But please don’t go tearing into your couch looking for something because there is a very good chance you don’t even have them in your home to begin with. Now speaking of beginnings, house centipedes start their life as an egg, and go through a series of molts just like insects! They have 10 molts to be exact, and for the first 5 they grow new legs! The first instar of a house centipede only has 4 and the next molt has 6 with the other 4 molts adding two new ones each time and here’s the crazy part. They can live up to 7 years! Yeah, that’s extremely long for something that is so similar to an insect, and it takes them 3 years to reach sexual maturity. Now I saw something online stating that they prefer winter outdoors but I feel like whoever wrote that probably lived in a tropical climate where summers are unbearable. I mean even Florida to me in the summer is pretty unbearable and I’d much rather be indoors with air conditioning. If you live in a colder climate like New England then you can be sure they’re spending those winters indoors. Especially because they can’t tolerate colder temperatures. It’s a surprise at all that they made it up past Mexico, but I guess being fast and nocturnal has allowed them to stay out of harm's way in close quarters to people. Which brings me to my final point. If you do indeed have this in your home, and you see them quite frequently that means you have a much bigger problem. To remove house centipedes you need to first remove their food, and like I said if they’re around that means you have enough of an actual pest problem which lured them there, and that’s not an easy task. As always regardless of the pest insect, if it’s a lot then you’re better off getting a professional as opposed to turning your home into a home alone film against insects.