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Getting to Know Your Everyday House Centipede

This is quite possibly one of the most unsettling creatures you can run into when you’re halfway under a bed. They’re all legs and mandibles and antennae, like a tracked vehicle with hair. And you just know Vincent D’Onofrio probably let them crawl all over him or some shit while he was studying to be Edgar in Men In Black.

But what are these hideous little monsters and can they hurt us?

Know Your Bugs: Centipedes Vs. Millipedes

First off, neither centipedes nor millipedes are true “bugs.” That designation is reserved for the Hemipteran order of insects and since neither centipedes nor millipedes are insects (6 legs, 3 body sections), well, they ain’t bugs either.

Anywho, here are some interesting centi/milli facts:

1. Both are in the subphylum Myriapoda, meaning “many legs”
2. Both are metameric, meaning their bodies are divided into mostly identical segments which is sort of obvious and lame until you know that humans have an evolutionary remnant of metamerization – our backbone’s repeating spinal discs
3. Millipedes are round and rolly, centipedes are flat and sassy
4. Millipedes always have two pairs of legs per body segment, centipedes have one
5. Centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs

Now that you can tell them apart in general, let’s talk about that fleet-footed beast that keeps running from cardboard box to cardboard box in your basement.

The Biggest Little Predator in Your House

House centipedes (some call them “thousand-leggers” or “million-leggers”) are rather ubiquitous varmints. They originated in the Mediterranean but are now common in the U.S., from Massachusetts on past the Rockies – though in climates with cold winters they live almost solely indoors.

Believe it or not, they’re top predators in their food chain and will hunt anything from silverfish, firebrats, worms, fly larvae and carpet beetle larvae to bedbugs, cockroaches, spiders and snails.

How do they do this? Well, Scutigera coleoptrata is more than just 15 pretty pairs of legs. Unlike most centipedes, these buggers have big, pseudofaceted eyes capable of tracking prey. And all those legs help them move at speeds up to 16 ½ inches per second – the equivalent of a human sprinting 42 mph.

“House centipedes are incredibly voracious predators,” says Linda S. Rayor of Cornell University during an episode of Syfy’s Monster Bug Wars. “They literally run down their prey.”

Then it’s time for the deathblow.

“The centipede has venomous claws,” says Rayor. “These are evolutionarily-modified front legs that are sickle-shaped organs. [They are] extraordinarily flexible and are able to inject venom into the prey – plus help tear it apart.”

(Note: this is kind of unusual, too. More often it’s a set of mandibles, not legs, that turns into fangs, so the house centipede’s “bite” is really a “sting.”)

And, in the event that the million-legger can grab up a few meals at a time, it can hold several small insects with its mandibles and front legs, making it a veritable Dr. Octopus-style killing machine.

If it wants to go after larger prey, say something it can’t pin down with one “hand,” the house centipede uses its legs to lash at the victim, beating it with its wispy limbs and then “lassoing” it in. Furthermore, they use those big ol’ eyes to make calculated strikes against prey that could potentially do them harm. They’ve been witnessed attacking wasps with a lightning quick strike of venom and then waiting from a safe distance as the poison takes effect.

So, even though they squish readily beneath a piece of tissue paper – and man, the big ones can be juicy – in their world, the house centipede is Sharptooth.

Great, Now How Do I Get Rid of Them?

Other than the aforementioned method of squishing, where you’ll have to be prepared for some detached legs that will keep kicking for a while after death, the best way to eradicate house centipedes is to remove the food source – i.e. all the little bugs upon whom they’re feasting.

But since they’ll happily do the job for you, why bother? House centipedes can almost never pierce human skin with their sting – though if they do, it’s the pain equivalent of a bee sting. They can live up to a few years and they actually mother their offspring for about two weeks, which is sort of precious.

They clean up the riff raff, keep to themselves, don’t stink or make a mess. And they eat bedbugs. Hell, you should be honored to have them.

Bittel Me More

If you like getting up close and personal with arthropods, be sure to watch Rayor on Monster Bug Wars – a delightful Science Channel program about bugs murdering each other.

 

Update

As pointed out to me by “vikeau” on Vinnie Vidi Vici – a lovely, Vincent D’Onofrio-centric blog – house centipedes can also be called “zillapedes,” which I rather like.