House centipede
Scutigera coleoptrata
— Where the name comes from
Scutigera is “shield-bearer”, from the Latin scutum and gerere: on its back it carries rigid plates covering the segments. Coleoptrata means “beetle-like”, for those same plates, which at first glance look like wing cases. It is the long, very fast animal that appears on the bathroom wall at night, and that almost everyone squashes without knowing it is on their side.
— Facts
- Group
- Myriapods · Myriapoda
- Order
- House centipedes
- Habitat
- Houses, cellars, bathrooms; outdoors under stones in damp places
- Range
- Mediterranean in origin; today across the northern hemisphere
- Size
- 25–35 mm of body; over 10 cm with legs and antennae
- Diet
- Spiders, cockroaches, silverfish, flies, bedbugs
- Lifespan
- 3–7 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It has fifteen pairs of very long legs and runs at 40 cm a second.
- 02
Unlike other centipedes it has true compound eyes.
- 03
Seized by a leg it sheds it and escapes: they grow back.
— What sets it apart
It is the one household predator that comes free. It hunts at night precisely the things nobody wants — cockroaches, silverfish, spiders, even bedbugs — and it does not bite people unless held in the hand, because its forcipules struggle to pierce our skin. Its hind legs are progressively longer than the front ones, which stops it tripping at the speed it runs, and they detach at the slightest pull: anyone who tries to catch one is often left with a leg in hand and the centipede already gone.
