Centipedes: The Brutal, Efficient, Carnivorous Assassins of the Bug World

Hello Steemians! I'm taking a short break from working on my next big art blog post for a fellow Steemian's portrait, to share this short post about a multi-legged venomous murder bug I caught last week. This is a creature that I have been highly fascinated with, since my first encounters with them as a young boy in the '70s.

Scolopendras, or giant centipedes, are one of the two wild and dangerous creatures that figured profoundly throughout my childhood days, while we were living right next door to the vast jungles and marshlands of Bislig, Surigao del Sur. The other one is the saltwater crocodile, which I had some encounters with in the wild. And I'll write about them someday.

I can specifically recall the first time I saw a giant centipede. It was while we were here in Manila on vacation, and I was probably about 3-years old at the time. I was playing hide-and-seek with my sister, and I ducked into one of the rooms in our house that was being used as a storeroom for unused stuff. The place I chose to hide was under my Grandpa's old desk. And while it was dark in the room, I could see that the veneer on the underside of the desk was peeling.

Then I noticed something long and black, with some appendages sticking out on either side of it. There was a clothes hanger nearby, and I grabbed it and poked it at the long, dark thing. It moved further up into the recesses of the peeling veneer, and I dashed out from under the desk in fear. I can vividly recall trying to explain what I had seen to my uncle, who couldn't understand what it was that seemed to have spooked me. My next encounter with it would be when we flew back to Surigao at the end of our Manila vacation.

Back in Surigao, my next sighting of this mysterious creature was during one night while having dinner. I was seated in my favorite spot which was in the corner of the dining room. And as I was eating, I saw this long, multi-legged creature leisurely crawling on the dining room floor on its way to somewhere in my corner. I followed it with my eyes, and saw it enter a hole near the corner of the floor. And, again, not knowing what it was called, I had some problem communicating my concern with my folks.

But, that ignorance suddenly changed, when one day my sister called me over to her side by the window where she pointed at something underneath the a small basin, which our Dad had placed there. My sister lifted the basin up a bit, and pointed at something. It was the mysterious creature which I had seen a couple of times in the past, and it seemed to be hunched over on something which it was devouring. Seeing it up close like that, I saw that it slightly resembled a shrimp. My sister had also called our Dad and told him to look at it.

And as I was about to touch the creature's back, he quickly blocked my arm and told me that it would bite me. So, I backed off. Then Dad brought a bottle of lighter fluid, and poured some on the creature. Then with his Zippo, he lit it up, and the hapless creature fell wriggling and writhing on the floor. Then it died. He picked it up by the terminal legs, those long hook-like legs at the last segment of the body, and said it's called a "centipede", and that it could give painful and venomous bites, kind of like a bug version of a venomous snake.

My next encounters with this terror bug happened in the next couple of years, while I was already in grade school. But these new encounters were with creatures I saw in the jungle, and were even longer and fatter than the ones we saw in our old house. Since I could already read encyclopedias by then, I found out that centipedes in the tropics could grow up to a foot long, or even more. As if a 7- or 8-inch specimen weren't nightmarish enough, imagine having a 10-incher or longer, crawling up your leg and biting you on your thigh, or worse, your privates!

I have yet to see a wild-caught one here in Manila that's more than 8-inches, as 8 happens to be common size for large specimens. If somebody says they have a 10 or longer, it's probably a captive-bred pet acquired from the trade. Yes, just like in other countries, there is a thriving pet/hobby trade here in Manila for these creatures, along with tarantulas and scorpions, which my brother used to have some of.

Some Facts About These Creatures

Centipedes are not insects, but are creatures known as myriapods, and along with insects, are part of a larger group of invertebrates called arthropods. The word "myriapod" means "many-legged", while "arthropod" means "joint-legged". Other members of the arthropod group are the crustaceans, spiders, and scorpions.

Centipedes are fast, predatory, carnivorous, and are one of the oldest extant venomous predators on the planet. They are thought to have evolved from other myriapods about 460 million years ago. That makes their lineage almost twice as old as that of the dinosaurs.

And although centipedes, and dinosaur descendants (the birds), are still around today, the centipedes remained looking not much so different than their ancestors. Just one look at their unchanged primitive form evokes a feeling of primordial terror that never fails to make your hairs stand on end.

Their venom is delivered by the pair of modified legs known as forcipules, attached just behind the head. Each forcipule is tipped with a thick, sharp claw which contains the venom glands, much like a pair of hypodermic needles filled with poison, which they stab into their prey with a pinching motion. Then the prey is devoured quickly, often while it is still alive.

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Myriapoda
Class: Chilopoda
Order: Scolopendromorpha
Family: Scolopendridae
Genus: Scolopendra
Species: subspinipes

Binomial name:
Scolopendra subspinipes

Common names:
Chinese red-head, giant centipede, jungle centipede, orange-legged centipede, Asian Forest centipede, red-headed centipede, and Vietnamese centipede.

This centipede is common throughout East Asia, Australia, the South Pacific islands, and have also reached parts of Central and South America, and Africa. Their wide range of distribution has resulted in the development of regional subspecies or variants, each with its beautiful and distinct coloration, hence the many common names for this creature.

Here is a list of the subspecies along with the common names of the ones popular in the pet trade:

Scolopendra subspinipes subspinipes, or Orange-legged Jungle Centipede/Asian Forest Centipede
Scolopendra subspinipes de haani, or Malaysian Cherry Red Centipede
Scolopendra subspinipes japonica, or Japanese Centipede
Scolopendra subspinipes mutilans, or Chinese Red-Headed Centipede
Scolopendra subspinipes fulgurans
Scolopendra subspinipes gastroforeata
Scolopendra subspinipes piceoflava
Scolopendra subspinipes cingulatoides

This particular centipede I've caught is a Chinese Red-Headed Centipede, the Scolopendra subspinipes mutilans. It is also called the Golden-Head Centipede. Now, this variant, although described as "Chinese", is actually quite common here in Southeast Asia, and is the type that one will most likely see or even catch, here in Manila.

And unlike other scolopendra species, the Chinese-Red Head is a communal creature and does not harbor any aggression to other centipedes. This trait allows them to be farmed by the Chinese, either as a food source, or for its venom, which bears a lot of medical significance. The venom is being studied further, after it had been found to exhibit anti-cancer activity in tumor cells.

Videos and more pictures

Video 1