But of course I opened up that and of course my computer froze on that picture for 3 minutes. Now I won’t be able to sleep for the next 7 months.

So I tell the entomologist that we’ve figured out what it is and he’s obviously familiar with them. I ask if they’re common around here and he said no. I told him from everything I’d read it looks like they’re hard to kill and his response was, “Yeah, get a hammer.” He’s also a pest control person. This is not comforting, LOL. However, I think it might have died in the jar.

If you’re seeing centipedes bigger than 1 1/2 inches long you’re likely seeing another species than S. coleoptera so beware.

I live in the middle of the country and in urbia (near downtown Kansas City, MO) and the only centipedes I have ever seen were outdoors in the garden. I’ve always had cats that were extremely diligent at pest control (no play, kill dead dead dead!) so if one of these little guys got in they’d have no chance.

On the other hand, despite my training and other circumstances, seeing baby flies could make me scream like a little girl (oh, wait, I’m a girl, but a big one).

One time I had to haul a bag o’trash from the porch to the street and did not look at it. As I was walking the short distance I realized the bag felt really really weird but I dared not look until I dropped it at the curb. Lots of commuters got to see me scream and do the gross-out dance, wiping my hands on the grass, etc. (we lived on a major thoroughfare at the time.) Had to go back in, put all clothing in washing machine and take a second shower, quivering with gross-out all the while.

Or, at the very least, I may introduce a few to the cave cricket city in my basement. I imagine it would be like the squid robots finding Zion down there.

The New Zealand giant weta grows to around 20cms long and is pretty much the biggest an insect can grow without requiring lungs for breathing.
Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Weta
Photo of one sitting on a person’s hand: http://www.geocities.co.jp/NatureLand-Sky/8651/photo/kama4-7.html

We are also the home of the gorgeous cave weta: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1200/705005889_9d2c3ad520.jpg?v=0

And don’t forget Weta Workshop, creators of such movies as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Narnia movies, the new King Kong among others: http://www.wetanz.com/weta-workshop-services/

Just me and Muno then?

So, I left ‘em be. But goddamn are they scary.

fortunately, i’ve only seen a couple of centipedes this season. they weren’t the long-legged House Centipedes, though, they were their less-leggy cousins, the blueish tinted Hemiscolopendra marginata.

Beneficial or no, these dudes get the boots put to ‘em when i find them in my house. i don’t give a shit. F ‘em. F ‘em in the B.

i used to be chill about coexisting with my insect neighbors, but now, generally, i exterminate with extreme prejudice.

-T

After a minute or two, I decided that the legs reminded me of the ends of calligraphic letterforms, so I started to make it all okay in my mind. Not so bad, eh? Then, I came to read comments, and while I was scrolling down, I somehow kicked it back to the top of the page accidentally, and saw that thing once more.

Instant horror all over again!

I think they look sorta cool, and nowhere near as horrid as “real” centipedes.

If this is the best we can manage for a small, harmless creature that’s been around for an order of magnitude longer than we have, then we’re fucked.

“I cannot abide the presence of a centipede in any fashion, and will hunt them down and destroy them without mercy. They are pretty much the only insect I will do this with. Centipedes are simply the worst.”

Let’s hope that should we ever encounter a life form more advanced than us, they don’t feel the same way.