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Everyone is saying they're harmless, but we read house centipedes cam leave painful bites. I've never been bitten, that I know of, but when plagued with centipedes, I'd sometimes wake up with one of two types of mysterious bug bites: itchy, and painful. I know from prior experience that most North American spider bites are only ever itchy, so I always put the painful ones down to house centipedes. I can't prove it, though. Here are the facts I do know about house centipedes, from empiricle evidence:
- They like damp. You'll find them in damp spots, drains, around toilets, around damp areas in basements, etc. Not exclusively, but predominantly.
- They wage a secret war with spiders. Sometimes the spider wins, but usually the centipede does unless it gets trapped by a web.
- Alive, they move like the wind. Shockingly, alarmingly fast.
- When smacked, they explode into air and legs. So many legs, and not much else.
- Despite reports that they control other bugs, they are useless against real nuisance bugs like soldier and stink bugs. And for fly control, spiders do a better job. The only real thing we ever saw centipedes hunting were spiders.
- Small glue traps work really well at controlling them. I caution against large glue traps, as they might catch small rodentia, and if you want to know true horror, find a YouTube video of a mouse caught in a glue trap.
I'm team spider.
This pretty well captures things! Insects that eat other insects are worth rooting for, but like you, Iβm on team spider.
Spiders are no insects technically. But whatever...
Are either centipedes or spiders insects? I thought insects only had 6 legs
They are arthropods, just like lobsters and insects, but no, they are not insects. Spiders are arachnids.
Centepides actually only have 6 legs. You can see the six real legs if you look closely at a picture. The other "legs" work like legs, but are not actually legs.
Dumb question but I thought centipedes had like... 95 legs or something.
The one in the op doesn't have that many. Why are people thinking it's a centipede?
Because centipedes vary a lot between species. The house centipede only has up to 15 pairs (30 legs): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutigera_coleoptrata
They can actually range from roughly 30-350 legs! Fun fact
I guess ninetyfivepede doesn't really roll off the tongue.
That's why you always find dead garden millipedes curled up in a spiral. The odd number of legs makes them walk in circles until they die from it. "True" story.
I was bitten by one in my sleep as a kid, my foot swelled and it was pretty painful.
Generally bug bites are more often from beetles than centipedes or spiders, meaning centipedes and spiders generally lower how many bug bites you'd be getting.
Dude, what kind of beetles do you have around youβ½ Where I live, I'm pretty confident there are no biting beetles - at least, none that can do any harm to humans.
You have way more beetles than you think you do, and far more beetles than you believe can bite. If you can find a spider, there are dozens of beetles that it's feeding on, in an over simplified way.
Oh, I know we have tons of beetles. They invade our house every fall. I've never encountered a biting one, though.
Youβre team spider unless you live in Australia and like all animals in Australia the spiders are no exception.Spiders kill, spiders eat burbs, spiders fly. Yup they fly, itβs nightmare material.
Iβve also been bitten by a centipede in bed while sleeping and woken up in so much pain I threw up(#australiathings). How did I know it was a centipede? It was still in the bed. They are not nice. But Iβm still all for them eating the spiders.
I've been bitten in the ass by centipede... twice. Took a few weeks until the bite mark disappear.
Your bullet points sound like an RTS (real time strategy) game's description of a unit. I would prefer neither around me, let them wage war (or set up home) elsewhere preferably.
Wouldn't it be inhumane to catch centipedes with glue traps if it is with rodents?
Alive, they move like the wind. Shockingly, alarmingly fast.
This is true. It was both shocking and alarming how fast it moved when I first spotted one in my room after moving to the east coast.