Found it dead in my dishes

220 points

I think that’s the bug they put in Neo in the first Matrix film

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18 points

Stomach bug

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12 points

There’s one going around, I hear.

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1 point

Drake got it, I believe

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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.

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46 points

This pretty well captures things! Insects that eat other insects are worth rooting for, but like you, I’m on team spider.

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14 points

Spiders are no insects technically. But whatever…

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9 points

Are either centipedes or spiders insects? I thought insects only had 6 legs

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10 points

They are arthropods, just like lobsters and insects, but no, they are not insects. Spiders are arachnids.

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5 points

Centepides actually only have 6 legs. You can see the six real legs if you look closely at a picture. The other β€œlegs” work like legs, but are not actually legs.

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I’m a severe arachnophobe but I still would rather have them than centipedes.

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12 points

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?

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25 points

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

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12 points

They can actually range from roughly 30-350 legs! Fun fact

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5 points

As far as I’m aware, if it’s got upwards of 350 legs, those are called millipedes, not centipedes.

Also, I’ve never in my life seen either a centipede or a millipede with legs anywhere near that long, so my mind is still stuck on WTF is that damn thing?

Any which way you go, I’d say kill it with fire! Even though it’s already dead, I wouldn’t wanna take any chances if it happens to have eggs in it or possibly a parasite or anything…

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8 points

I guess ninetyfivepede doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

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2 points

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. β€œTrue” story.

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1 point
*
Deleted by creator
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10 points

I was bitten by one in my sleep as a kid, my foot swelled and it was pretty painful.

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2 points

That’s good enough for me, nuke it’s location Xi

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5 points
*

You’re 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, it’s nightmare material.

I’ve 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 I’m still all for them eating the spiders.

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5 points

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.

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Dude, what kind of beetles do you have around youβ€½ Where I live, I’m pretty confident there are no biting beetles - at least, none that can do any harm to humans.

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3 points

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.

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4 points
*

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.

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3 points

I’ve been bitten in the ass by centipede… twice. Took a few weeks until the bite mark disappear.

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2 points

Wouldn’t it be inhumane to catch centipedes with glue traps if it is with rodents?

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1 point

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.

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123 points

Thats a house centipede. Looks creepy, but its a nice house pet. It eats all of the other, undesireable, pests in your house.

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57 points

Ok, thanks! Unfortunatelly this one doesnt qualify anymore as a pet but i am sure there are others around in the garden eg

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12 points

Yep, they are pretty cool ! Until there is no other pests left…

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11 points

Oh so it’s a rest of the world huntsman spider, cool. I’ve got one in my bedroom, love having little buggy helpers around

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30 points

People love to say that they are harmless. But then why give it the most harmful sounding name imaginable?

HUNTS

MAN

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20 points

And not just the men. The women and children too!

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16 points

When I was younger and I had roommates I hated it when they killed the house spiders. It was the reason we had so many other bugs. Once that roommate moved out, the rest of us stopped killing the spiders and after a burst of spiders the rest of the bugs were gone. House bugs are very creepy but they keep the bad house bugs away. Like bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs and the evolutionary niche they’ve crawled out from.

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8 points
*

Does it come as good news that cockroaches are bedbug predators? Some real β€œpick your poison” shit, huh?

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16 points

You see, I think spiders are incredibly interesting animals. But I really can’t look at them. I guess my Mum screaming every time something with more than 4 legs appeared had a lasting impact on me. So having one next to me while I sleep is nightmare stuff to me.

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14 points
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2 points

Depends on the spider. I would not want something like a huntsman spider, but I don’t mind the small ones that just sit in their corner webbing.

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1 point

This is centipede propaganda, long live the spider queen, death to the centipedes!

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1 point

It also keeps the house because I can’t look at it

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113 points

It’s a common house centipede.

Generally good critters. They do bite though.

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53 points

I know they’re generally harmless (they eat bugs and won’t bite you if you leave it alone) but they make my skin crawl and I can’t help but kill them with extreme prejudice when I find one.

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29 points

The big thing for me is it’s a sign there are bugs for them to eat in your walls or house.

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13 points

If it has more appendages than I do, I immediately dislike it.

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10 points

You’re just jealous that you don’t have than many limbs.

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10 points

Same. Just seeing one makes me gag. My physical response to them is wild, and I WILL kill it.

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1 point

Same. They’re just too damn creepy to let live.

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21 points

Wait, common!?

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17 points

Oh yeah

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3 points
*

Midwest here, insanely common.

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7 points

Or at least, it was.

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they bite???

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6 points

Not only do they bite, they are venomous. So if one does manage to bite you, it will hurt like a bitch.

On the other hand, one will most likely not bite you.

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102 points

That’s a house centipede. They will leave you alone and eat lots of pests.

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35 points
*

Thanks for taking the useful approach, rather than parroting the usual drivel

Edit It turns out they feed on bed bugs - surely that should sway a few people.

…And they can detach their legs? I want one!

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33 points

Just so people who see them aren’t worried, they don’t just eat bed bugs. They will eat basically any insect that is smaller than they are up to and including spiders. I even saw one eating a yellowjacket once. So having house centipedes in your home doesn’t mean that you have bedbugs.

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4 points

Spiders are creepy but they’re not bad either. Get rid of flies and mosquitos

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4 points

Yeah it means you have house centipedes which is only slightly less bad.

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9 points

I want one!

Don’t worry, you already have more than one, probably hiding in the walls.

Unless you live in a high rise building…

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1 point

They probably have two, regardless of where they live. Unless they are in a wheelchair.

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20 points
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Deleted by creator
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14 points

I wish I had a few of those instead of a multitude of disgusting silverfish }:

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3 points

But silverfish are not bad either? They don’t carry disease.

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16 points

Silverfish eat the glue that’s used to bind books. So they’re a pest to someone with a personal library.

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5 points

They only have six legs, so very uncool. Also, they’re jumpscare experts. Chillin’ on the frickin’ ceiling, in packs of toilet paper, my dirty laundry bin… I despise them for it.

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1 point
*

I’ve got regular silverfish in the bathroom, but gray silverfish (or paperfish as they are called here) in the rest of the house. Those things are larger and much more destructive, some found their way in my collection of sheet music… They literally eat their way through paper and even damage untreated wood, nasty critters. And worse, where ventilating your house helps against silverfish, it only seems to create even better living conditions for those buggers. I’d trade for house centipedes happily.

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13 points

yeah it’s just zoomed in, discolored, and wet/squished. Poor thing. Theyre unnerving at first but once you get used to them you can think of them as eyelashes gliding around the floor.

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20 points

that visualization doesn’t help, at all

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2 points

Theyre just winking at you across the floor ;)

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7 points

Was*

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2 points

Yes, fair

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