Interested to know what the heck this is.
June 29, 2010
The past couple of months something has been biting me and my family members. I haven’t ever seen it though. I was thinking it might have been a spider of some kind but i think this is the culprit. I saw him dart across my floor and i gave chase. i tried to save the little guy but my girlfriend freaked out and killed it. I still managed to get some pics of it. I would really like to know what this is, Thank you!
p.s. its a little less than an inch long and maybe 2 to 3 millimeters wide.
Chuck
Southern Virginia, great dismal swamp area
House Centipede
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for writing in to inquire about this unfortunate harmless House Centipede, a frequent victim of Unnecessary Carnage. Few examples of Unnecessary Carnage sadden us more that that of the beneficial predatory House Centipede. Though it is too late to benefit the individual in your tragic photograph, perhaps future House Centipedes will be spared through education. House Centipedes are generally nocturnal hunters that will prey upon cockroaches and other undesirable household intruders. House Centipedes should be considered as household visitors despite their startling appearance.
23
Stripey Bug found in Private Forrest
June 9, 2010
Found this bug walking through my room, thought it was brought in from firewood from our private forest. It was fairly slow, even when running.
Nathan
Drouin, Victoria, Australia
House Centipede
Hi Nathan,
This is a harmless House Centipede. It appears to be Allothereua maculata, a species found in Asia and Australia, and you can compare your specimen to the image on the Natural History Museum of London website. The species is different from our common North American species, Scutigera coleoptrata, which though it is found in many places throughout the world, it is believed to have originated in the Mediterranean area, according to BugGuide. Since we know we will be out of the office from June 15 through June 22, we are setting your letter and photo to post live during our absence so our readership can get daily updates in our absence.
1
High-Def Photo of House Centipede
June 2, 2010
Hello! I love your website, and am also an amateur photographer. A lovely house centipede was resting in my basement office and was patient enough with me to let me test out the macro features on my camera. I hope to get a chance to photograph some more interesting bugs sometime soon!
(also, I’m sorry if I sent multiple emails. I was having issues with the form.)
Katy
Toledo, OH
House Centipede
Hi Katy,
YOur House Centipede photo is quite nice. We look forward to getting additional images from you in the future.
Nothing I’ve Seen Before
May 18, 2010
Hello,
This bug was found scurrying across the floor of my workplace in Columbus, Ohio. I found it yesterday (May 16th) around midnight on a damp, cloudy/rainy day. Our store is next to the interstate, in an industrial part of town.
Shawn
Midwest – Ohio
House Centipede
Hi Shawn,
The House Centipede is a common nocturnal household predator that is found throughout North America as well as in many other parts of the world. House Centipedes are harmless.
strange worm
April 10, 2010
this is the second group of pics , from the mountains of tartous.
this worm produced a very disgusting smelly liquid,as i tried to poke it.
native people here call it “the mother of all snakes”.what is it?
thank you bug people…i have been very demanding lately.
WAEL
Tartous,Syria.Middle East
Millipede
Hi again WAEL,
This is an easy identification, provided we don’t need to go to the species level. This is not a worm, but a Millipede in the class Diplopoda. Your letter contains the observation regarding the “smelly liquid” which is released as a defense mechanism. According to BugGuide: “many emit poisonous or foul-smelling substances” and Charles Hogue, in his book Insects of the Los Angeles Basin indicates that cyanide is a component of this substance. One of your photos also depicts a second defense mechanism, coiling into a ball. Thanks so much for providing the excellent local name of “the mother of all snakes.”
Millipede
Costa Rican millipede
April 7, 2010
Hi bugman :]
I thought you might like this picture of a millipede we found in Costa Rica in the Monteverde cloud forest region. She had babies that were so tiny you could barely see them hiding above her legs and underneath her outer shell. When you bother her, she secretes a fluid containing cyanide. It smells like almonds. I looked in your millipede section and she looks a lot like some of the millipedes there, but many of those were from the U.S. Do you know what kind of millipede she is?
Steiv
Monteverde, Costa Rica
Millipede
Dear Steiv,
Thanks for sending your Millipede photo with the observational data. We are curious about your comment about the babies because we were not aware of Millipedes transporting their young about. We tried to research this behavior, and we found two sources with identical information. According to the Millipedes at Animal Corner website: “Millipedes lay their eggs in the soil. Some species make individual cases for their eggs out of chewed-up leaves. In some species, the female, and occasionally the male, guard the eggs until they hatch. Although young millipedes resemble small adults, they are usually have no legs when they first hatch from the egg. After they molt, or shed their exoskeleton for the first time, they have six body segments and three pairs of legs.“ We found the identical information here at a Diplopoda Behavior and Reproduction website. We wonder, perhaps, if there were mites or some other creature living on the Millipede.
2
Colorful centipede
March 25, 2010
I found this guy about 6″ underground while planting pine trees in Western PA. It’s about 1 1/4″ to 1 1/2″ long.
James
Pittsburgh PA
Millipede
Hi James,
While they share many physical similarities with Centipedes, your creature is actually a Millipede. They are distinguished from Centipedes by Millipedes having two pairs of legs per body segment. Based on photos posted to BugGuide, we believe this is Sigmoria latior which is a member of the family Xystodesmidae, which BugGuide characterizes as “Many are brightly colored and all have stink glands.”
No clue what this is, found at school computer lab, should i be scared?
February 21, 2010
Hi my friend and I saw this bug at the computer lab at our school crawling up on the wall, we have no clue what it is. It looked black and gray as you can tell it has a lot of legs. Please help! We go to college on a mountain and we swear they have some undiscovered species of insects roaming around.
Sam
Brentwood California
House Centipede
Hi Sam,
The House Centipede is not only harmless, it is actually beneficial since it will eat potentially problematic household intruders.
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