About two hours ago, we found a three-inch long critter crawling on the wall near our front door. Naturally, we scooped him up into an old baby food jar, took pictures, watched him moving around, and hopped online to identify him. Naturally! Isn’t that how we live our lives?
“Alex” - named by JediBoy - is a centipede. Not a scary-looking house centipede, which would make me think we were in for a pest problem! Just a regular, garden-variety centipede.
Centipedes have flat bodies; millipedes have cylindrical bodies. Centipedes have one pair of legs per body segment; millipedes have two. So our “Alex” is definitely a centipede.
Centipedes are venomous. Handling some types can cause them to bite, bringing swelling and irritation similar to a bee sting. They are carnivorous, mainly eating worms and insects. There are over 3000 species of centipedes in the world, with about 1000 appearing in North America. The longest centipede is about 18 inches - coincidentally, JediBoy’s arm from his armpit to the tip of his middle finger is 18 inches, so he LOVED that factoid! Also, some centipedes can live to be about six years old - which is the birthday that JediBoy is approaching.
Here are some of the sites we used:
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Humboldt State University Natural History Museum
Growing Kids Learn at Global Garden - a free online gardening magazine from Australia
What’s That Bug? - one of our favorite bug-photo sites
My next learning experience is figuring out how best to take a picture of a fast-moving tiny critter inside a baby food jar!
Categories:
