centipede.
distant relative (third cousin twice removed) of the lobster, crayfish, and shrimp—which is why the centipede likes to live under rocks
legs.
anywhere from 20 to 300 pairs, depending on the type (this one being Scolopendra polymorpha, or Desert Tiger centipede)
bites.
yes, indeed, inflicted by the poison claw that exists just under the head (and some centipedes have stingers in their many legs, so best rule of thumb: Don’t handle centipedes!)
dinner.
centipedes are meat-eaters (munching on lizards, insects, toads, rodents) and they get eaten by fellow carnivores (owls, coyotes, roadrunners)
size.
up to 6-8 inches, average 4-5 (either range spells “t-o-o b-i-g”)
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This centipede showed up on a walk on the ditch that my daughter and I took shortly after I wrote the piece Centipede Dreams. My daughter was in no mood to hang out with me while I picked up a small stick and caused the centipede to walk in circles as I tried photographing it with my iPhone. I don’t think the centipede thought much of me either, but I had fun.
-Related to post WRITING TOPIC — INSECTS & SPIDERS & BUGS, OH MY!
Walking With Centipedes
September 26, 2010 by ybonesy
Nice photos! Hey, try this riddle out on your girl: what lies on its back, 100 feet in the air?
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LOL. I tried it; she fell for it. (But centipedes aren’t 100 feet in the air.) Of course, Jim then had to challenge the idea that centipedes have 100 feet. Thanks for the laughs. 8)
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thanks for expanding my view on bugs. i didn’t realize so many jokes were out there about bugs. i have heard of caterpillar jokes, and some centipede ones, although not yours Christine!! check out website below. Really? Earwig jokes? i didn’t think an earwig could be topic of laughter…
http://www.scatty.com/jokes/scary/bugjokes.html
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I love that there’s a category for “Stupid Insect Jokes,” as if none of the other jokes are stupid 8). (Or maybe they mean stupid insects, because maybe earwigs are not as intelligent as ants?)
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I didn’t know any of that about the centipede. Thanks, Ybonesy. 🙂
Love that joke too. I’m going to share that one with my granddaughter.
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Ayieee. The centipede is one creepy-crawly that I could live without. But I’m sure they have their place among the order of things. I see small ones in these parts once in a while. Mr. Stripeypants and Kiev will play with any kind of bug they find in the house. So they don’t last long.
I don’t know. Just something about centipedes creeps me out. How can a centipede eat a mouse? Are they really big enough to do that? Or do they just grow them bigger in New Mexico? I’ve never seen one that big here. 8)
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I remember when my little son was freaking out that there was a snake in his closet. We had to drag everything out, and sure enough it was a very long snaky centipede in there.
Last week I felt a crunch under my heel in the laundry room; I thought it was a moth – but closer inspection revealed a scorpion, only about two inches long. We have seen several this year, also “la nina de la tierra”, a few of those. Crickets appear to be on the decline, thankfully. I have very little patience for the midnight sonata.
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You’re welcome, Robin.
QM, the centipedes in NM can grow pretty long–up to about 8 inches, according to the info I found out there. The one in the photo was probably about 6 inches long. The photo that shows it next to the stick, and the one where it’s next to a footprint, give a sense of scale.
I’m not sure why they grow bigger out here. I would think they’d be kind of small given that they like moisture and it’s not very moist here. I hear they get super giant out in the tropics of Latin America. But maybe it’s this Desert Tiger type of centipede that is naturally big.
lil, yikes, a scorpion!! I’ve never seen one in this part of Corrales, but I hear they are pretty common in the sand hill area. I understand they hang out in pairs–is that right? I haven’t seen any children of the earth-slash-potato bugs-slash-Jerusalem crickets (see the Insects link in the post) for quite some time.
But we do get lots of crickets, and they do drive us crazy as we try to get them out of the insanely hard-to-reach places they crawl into. We have radiant baseboard heating, and one of their favorite places is inside the radiators. Which, yes, radiate their songs! We do a catch-and-release program, and the best catcher is Em, who picks even the big ones up with her bare hands. 8)
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OMG yb. I am SOOOOOO glad I ate my shrimp dinner before seeing this.
Man, I hope these things don’t end up on QM’s 2011 “food-on-a-stick” list, deep fried and all covered in chocolate…whew
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LOL – don’t give the MN State Fair any ideas! Centipede on-a-stick. 8)
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Em is brave! I like the catch and release program. We have that with our spiders. I catch them in jars and release them outside on the deck. We don’t get crickets inside the house. I swear I saw a roach on the floor at work the other day though. Not a comforting thought. Reminds me, Liz and I watched a documentary of this photographer who shot a whole book of roaches, Catherine Chalmers. Amazing to hear her talk about her projects. She lives with and raises the critters she photographs. She did say she had roach nightmares though. I can see why.
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I’ll take crickets over roaches any day. 8) Hey, have you heard that crickets are good luck, QM? I think I saw that on the Disney show Mulan. Or maybe somewhere else, but either way, catch and release is very important to not bring oneself bad juju. (I don’t kill spiders, either.)
Hey, Heather, did you see the post Food-On-A-Stick (China Style) [LINK]? Look closely–you’ll see centipedes-on-a-stick. Maybe I can have my friend who took the photo bring some back for you on her next trip. 😉
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BTW, the cockroaches in NM are also pretty big. I’ve heard they’re also called water bugs. But they’re humongous, and growing up we had them all the time, I guess because we lived in a green belt area (relatively close to the river) and they came up through the water pipes. I think we’d have them here, too, except this municipality is not on a central sewer system.
BTW, I just tried to find a picture of the cockroaches of my youth. I found something in this link. In another site I read that if they escape being squished, they can live up to two years. Can you imagine?!
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Man they’re freaky.
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They really are scary looking–I guess cuz they’re so darned long. And they almost look like those plastic bugs that we used to play with as kids.
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