This installment of TIB honors Scutigera coleoptrata, commonly know as the “House Centipede!” (not to be confused with the house salad dressing, which is markedly different)
I first met my little cohabitant in the downtown loft I rented in Knoxville, and they’ve been with me ever since. My wife believes that I actually imported them from Tennessee, but a little web research reveals they’ve been in the Northeast for quite some time, especially in old buildings. They’re thought to have migrated from the Mediterranean. Perhaps this explains why they seem to come out in droves when I’m sautéing garlic, or opening a bottle of Italian wine.
THE GOOD NEWS: They don’t carry disease, and they eat cockroaches, spiders and silverfish.
THE BAD NEWS: They are immortal and invincible (at least according to this informative site).
For more pix of S. coleoptrata, click the link above. To get up close and personal in a face to face meeting with this beastie, click here.
Click here to scroll through my entire invertebrate portfolio. What a long, strange, spineless trip it's been.
i just saw one of these things run accross my floor and then disappear somewhere... i almost pissed myself.
Posted by: Jeannie | Sunday, 28 June 2009 at 03:37 AM
i freak out everytime i see a centipede. i dont know exactly what about it terrifys me. i know it wont harm me but, on the other hand i know when i'm asleep they are crwling in my bed. a week ago my daughter came to sleep in our bed, she is only 3. she woke up 5 in the morning crying saying, "there is a big spider on the pillow". i open my eyes, and what do you know, a huge ass centipede running of the pillow. i was hysterical,which i realy should not have done cause my girl got scared even more. My husband wakes up rgiht away and spots the bug running up the wall and swats him real quick with his slipper and goes right back to sleep. like nothing happened. My daugher and i were obviously up till the following night.
My question is.. should i be concerned that centipedes may be crawling in my daughters bed at night?
Posted by: Rebecca | Monday, 15 June 2009 at 03:43 AM
These critters are not "Good". They kill spiders, 1st strike, 2nd strike is they're mean, they bite and it hurts.
3rd strike is that they're creepy as all hell
Posted by: Ryan | Thursday, 02 April 2009 at 01:30 AM
there are more than hundred kinds of difrent centipeds in the world. but wich country would you find it in. There in every country,province,etc.
Posted by: gorge | Saturday, 25 October 2008 at 02:03 PM
coak joke
Posted by: Joe | Saturday, 25 October 2008 at 01:59 PM
We used to have plenty of these things in our (finished) basement. During the summer they would come out when it got dark. Me and my brother would make it a point to never let them live when we saw one, but you could never get them all. They are actually good bugs in the way that they eat other bugs, although i'd rather have spiders than these things. We also had carpenter ants (big black ones) which tended to be the centipedes main food source. Once we got rid of the ants, the centipedes almost completely disappeared. Now we might see 2 or 3 all summer long.
Posted by: Phil | Sunday, 07 September 2008 at 07:36 PM
I was lucky in the past. I was always away for the summers so I never encountered these little suckers besides the ones my father caught in jars, but Im home this summer and have found quite a few in my bedroom. Even with the increase of me seeing them this year I havent encountered more than one maybe every couple of weeks, but I just found 3 in the last 4 days. I found two tonight within 5 minutes of eachother. All three were babies. So I want to know do they breed in large numbers. Should I be paranoid that I'll see many more now? And does Raid kill them? Im too scared of them to even get near one to kill it let alone catch the speedy little devil so the Raids looking pretty friendly to me.
Posted by: nina | Saturday, 16 August 2008 at 04:35 AM
Yeah I can't let these ugly little things live! In my apartment in Atlanta, GA, we call them feather bugs! I woke up one morning with what appeared to be mosquito bites...about 45 of them completely covering my left breast and in the center of my chest...I don't know for sure what got me but I know there aren't mosquitoes in my apt so I am blaming the utterly disgusting feather bug aka house centipede. I had no illness and nothing more than severe itchiness like that of a mosquito bite but I am hugely disgusted either way! Nothing a little anti itch aveeno lotion couldn't cure but still ew ew ew! I'd rather kill the ants and cockroaches myself than have a 15 legged monster chewing on my boob in my sleep!
Posted by: Nikki Wigenton | Wednesday, 13 August 2008 at 03:29 PM
Greetings, I live in Northern Italy and these super fast house centipedes are part of the food chain!
I've seen them inside stalking a spider, then flash, they've got it. I used to think they were invincible until I found out what was eating the centipedes...... House Scorpions! about 2 inch long shiny black scorpions, they hunt house centipedes. I haven't yet noticed what is eating the scorpions!!!!, luckily they don't annoy us , we don't annoy them. they mostly live in the semi-interrato basement. Locals compare a small scorpion sting to a wasp sting.
Posted by: David | Thursday, 19 June 2008 at 05:28 PM
okay ive seen like 20 of these in this one room of my house.do they like certain things and is there a way to get rid of them?
Posted by: Nick | Wednesday, 18 June 2008 at 12:47 AM
the house that i live in isn't that old i was shocked to encounter such a scaryyyyyy bug. i only say this because the thing was TWO inches long!!! and scurring across my basement floor. i have seen them in my bathroom very small and killable i didn't really mind. But this guy came out of nooo were.. which made me look them up. i could have let it live but i wasn't really thinking of the benefits. I didn't know that these bugs were good for the house with keeping other bugs out. But on the other hand they are venomous and have a sharp bite like a bee sting. my 1 1/2 year old niece had broken out in a rash and had gotten pretty sick. I looked up house bugs and came across their affects on small children. Weird as it sounds she'd been biting/stung by a house centipede. So now we are are going to have them removed, im sure their is enough of them to survive because they lay 151 eggs each during spring!!! scary!! Ecspecially when you yourself come across them. I can't belive they could do soo much damage to your pets and small children. but i looked all the info up on google "house bugs". So they may be beneficial at times but theirs wayyy more downs than ups.
Posted by: Elizabeth from ohio | Tuesday, 17 June 2008 at 06:08 PM
what country does it live in]
Posted by: poo | Tuesday, 03 June 2008 at 12:45 PM
they like warm and moist conditions. that's why they're almost always found in basements or ground level rooms. dehumidifiers are supposed to do the trick to get rid of them. they also hide under dead leaves outdoors and small cracks and crevices in your foundation. the best way to control them is to keep them out in the first place. caulk and seal your home, and get rid of the dead leaves from around your foundation. also remove any clutter inside where they like to hide. try to let them live!!!!!!!!!!!! they eat harmful insects and beetles including silverfish, cockroaches, bedbugs, ladybugs, termites, ants, spiders, even each other if food is running thin! if they bother you indoors, put them outdoors, but don't kill them! they are really beneficial creatures and not harmful to humans.
Posted by: Destiny | Wednesday, 05 March 2008 at 10:37 PM
my guess is that if you have had all those infestations in the past, that is why the centipedes are so happy at your home. the good thing is, they are keeping all those other harmful bugs at bay...by devouring them. i bet you haven't seen many moths, ladybugs or spiders around lately...
we live in a basement apartment in Albany, NY and we see them from time to time scurrying across the floor, taking a drink in our kitchen sink, shower, etc. I still can't get used to them. I SCREAM the minute I see one. you'd think i was being murdered. I am just petrified of them. But at the same time, I know they are "good" so I try to let them live.
I found one just today - he had trapped himself in the sink. After giving him a little bath in one of the dishes (accidentally) my cousin was finally able to scoop him up into an empty juice container so we could peer at him. Gross little fella. Just gives me the creepy crawlies thinking about him.
I let him go outside before my husband got home. He always kills them. His favorite methods: squashing them with a broom and running warm water over them until they drown.
Posted by: Destiny | Wednesday, 05 March 2008 at 10:31 PM
um its a cave centipede moron
Posted by: alfred | Sunday, 04 November 2007 at 01:16 PM
uhh do they taste good?
Posted by: TheREN | Thursday, 25 October 2007 at 09:09 PM
uhh do they taste good?
Posted by: TheREN | Thursday, 25 October 2007 at 09:08 PM
okay i guess my house has been infested with them for i'd say about 4 - 5 years now and these things drive me nuts. once i was working on something in the basement with my girl friend sitting on the steps talking to me, and then all of a sudden she turned ghost white, and i felt something tickle me on the neck. after reaching back to scratch the itch a one of these big suckers fell off my neck onto my leg. it was more than an inch long and i'll tell ya i've never been much for screaming but i came pretty close at that point. i've seen these suckers around for a while before the neck tickling incident, and did the live and let live policy, until then. now i just want them out of my house. they seem very seasonal. they start showing up around this time of year (June) and go till about october. i really dont want to have to get the whole house fumigated or what not but is there anyway to just keep them away from me? :) i killed a tiny one today, and a great big one after it scared yet another girl friend crazy by falling off the couch. when the house was orginally built we had a moth infestation for serveral years, which was then replaced with a lady bug infestation, followed by a spider infestion, then the lady bugs came back... and now i got these little buggers running around for about 4 years... i'm getting very tempted to just pop a few dozen cans of bug bomb and be done with it! LOL.
Posted by: Dave from Kentucky | Friday, 08 June 2007 at 11:38 PM
I heard that they generally contain enough venom to seriously injure or even kill my little dog.
Not likely unless your dog is by some odd chance allergic to the venom. According to the wikipedia entry on house centipedes:
"The house centipede is capable of biting a human, but this seldom occurs. When it does, it is no worse than a minor bee sting. The worst one can usually expect from a house centipede's bite is some pain and a slight swelling at the location of the bite. The symptoms generally disappear within a few hours. However, the bite can cause health problems for those few who are allergic to the extremely mild venom of its bite, which is similar to that of most normal centipedes. The house centipede's venom is too weak to cause any serious harm to larger pets such as cats and dogs."
Posted by: dope | Thursday, 15 March 2007 at 02:50 PM
Just to make sure I am clear, the ''guys'' I am talking about are House Centipedes/Garden Centipedes.
Justin
Belle River, Ontario, Canada
Posted by: Justin | Wednesday, 14 March 2007 at 06:04 AM
Hello,
I have quite a few of these guys in my house. They are gross, but I would like to be able to tollerate them. I do not like to kill living things unless they need to be killed. I know that these things are venomous, but do not usually have any effect on humans. However, I have a 4 pound dog who just loves to pounce on everything. I have seen her go after one of these things and I became panic stricken. I heard that they generally contain enough venom to seriously injure or even kill my little dog. Could you please shed some light on my concerns?
Thank you for your time.
Justin
Belle River, Ontario, Canada
Posted by: Justin | Wednesday, 14 March 2007 at 05:53 AM
Oh ya I forgot to mention I live in a small town just outside of London Ontario and in a house with what I thought to be no more than spiders well I guess thes things are here too .
Posted by: Rick Burton | Sunday, 08 October 2006 at 11:49 PM
10-8-06 Found one of these damn things and didn't know what it was.This insect showed up while doing renovations.I imagine it got out into the room from pulling up the baseboards.Luckily there is a panic stricken public about such creature.Ugly as sin and kinda starteling when crawling up the wall in the corner of your vision.I was happy to find out that these bugs eat other unwanted pests and on a very rare occasion will bite humans.like an earlier post stated live and let live but in my direct view I am gonna kill em.
Posted by: Rick Burton | Sunday, 08 October 2006 at 11:41 PM
I live in NH, just moved into my apartment a few months ago, and didn't start seeing these little guys until about 1 month ago... It's an old mill building converted to apartments. As far as the benefits go, as long as they stay outta sight, let them eat whatever they want, but if they come into view, I will eradicate with extreme prejudice... I can't handle more than 6 legs on a bug...
Posted by: Tab | Wednesday, 30 August 2006 at 08:37 AM
Gee, I'm feeling kinda lousy having squished one of these guys the other day (in response to some spousal hysterics). Had I seen this post first, I'd have been inclined to let him go. Then again, it was in the bedroom, which is kind of pushing it.
Thanks for the ID; I'd always wondered what they were.
As for the upright-walking spineless, I don't think they're visible in photos: kinda like vampires.
Posted by: Eric M. | Saturday, 06 May 2006 at 06:06 PM