# ARUBA, scolopendra



## Steven (Jul 29, 2003)

Hey,

does anybody know wich species of scolopendras do live in Aruba ?


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

here some pictures of a scolopendra species found in Aruba, can anybody ID this sucker?


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

another one, this pede has bit a female in Aruba, she's was taking to a hospital for 8 days, now 2 months later she stills seems to react to the bit,....

so can anybody give an indication on what species this can be?



greetz


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## aftershock (Jul 30, 2003)

It looks amazing, don't know what species though.


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## fatbloke (Jul 30, 2003)

nice looking pede any idea of the size

fatbloke


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

check out his latest pair of leggs, missing one,...

don't know if it lost it when the woman trew it off her arm or he allready lost that before it atacked her  


greetz


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

the size would be app. 20-25 cm looking at the floor.
such a floorpart is 50cm*50cm.

What kind of scolopendra can this be ?


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## fatbloke (Jul 30, 2003)

wheres aruba:?  could it be some form of subspinipes sp:


fatbloke


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by fatbloke _
> *wheres aruba:?  could it be some form of subspinipes sp:
> 
> 
> fatbloke *


Isn't Aruba in the Carribean?



Paul


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

> Isn't Aruba in the Carribean?


yep right,...

 it's a Carribian island where a part of the people speak dutch


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## ines68 (Jul 30, 2003)

Aruba is near Venezuela (the distance is about 15 miles), is a Island. I have a friend that was bitten by one really similar (was on her shoe).


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

> I have a friend that was bitten by one really similar (was on her shoe).


Is it then save to say that this species is of the same species as the venezuelean scolopendras ?


@Ines:
Is it correct that their are dutchspeaking parts in Aruba?


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## RugbyDave (Jul 30, 2003)

you don't need ines to answer this one 

dutch is the "official" language of aruba, but the native language is actually papiamento(u). it used to be considered a pigin, but was moved to an actual language. However, that depends on what version of "pigin" you are using, of course.

Spanish and English are spoken fluently on the island. An interesting note is that there's seemingly 50+ different cultures on the island. Thats partly why such an interesting pigin language arose there (papiamento(u)).

There are also talks of a different language being spoken about 14 miles inland, between casihari and arikok. There are tales of a culture that predates the natives, but the one man who was said to speak said language died almost 20 years ago. 

anyways,
 it could be some kind of venezuelan pede, as it really is only about 15 miles to ven. from aruba. Especially with the copious amount of tourist traffic between the two places.

peace
dave


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## ines68 (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by gongyles _
> *@Ines:
> Is it correct that their are dutchspeaking parts in Aruba? *


Yes, Aruba is a  Dutch colony, they speak english, spanish, dutch and papiamento. Papiamento is the native language, only spoken in Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

EDIT: RugbyDave, you win answering because I write slow in english


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## RugbyDave (Jul 30, 2003)

Haha, 2 minutes off, Ines.. try and beat me next time 

just joshing, but in the sense of knowledge-fairness, the language Papiamento(u) is also found on the islands of Saint Maarten, Statia and there have been 4 manuscripts found on Saba written in Papiamento(u) _about_ Saba.

strictly speaking, though, the general dispersion is found throughout the *leeward* islands of the netherlands antilles. Its interesting to theorize why that would be.. but i won't bore you 

as of the year 2000, about a quarter of a million people speak papiamento(u).

either way, its a really cool pede! Is that pic taken in a bungalo, or in your house, or flat, or what?!

peace
dave

EDIT: ines, remember when i told you i'm full of useless info??  In my defense, i spent some years studying speech-language-pathology, so go figure


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

So Aruba IS in the Carribean Sea?


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

@Rugby Dave & Ines68

thanx a lot for clearing this out for me, i'm also dutch speaking so that makes Aruba an ideal hollidaytrip for me 

the pictures waren't taken at my house,... do you know what climate we've got here in Belgium  

the pictures were send to me by Linda Valkman, she lives in Aruba and comes every year to Belgium, a couple of months ago she was bit by that scolopebndra in the arm,... so she asked me if i could figure out what the exact species of scolopendra it was.

the medical staf and stuff of Aruba couldn't give her any explanation. so know i and Linda are counting on the "experts" of this board  

again sorry for my bad englisch as i explained, i only speak dutch 


greetz
Steven


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

> So Aruba IS in the Carribean Sea?


i would say: YES


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ines68 _
> *Aruba is near Venezuela (the distance is about 15 miles), is a Island. I have a friend that was bitten by one really similar (was on her shoe). *


Did your friend tell you what the results of the bite were?


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

Steven,

Your English is NOT bad!! It's very good!

Did Linda tell you what the results of the bite were? (sorry for sounding like a skipping record  

Best wishes,

Paul


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## ines68 (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by phoenixxavierre _
> *Did your friend tell you what the results of the bite were? *


Do not remember, but I will ask the next time I see her


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## Steven (Jul 30, 2003)

> Did Linda tell you what the results of the bite were? (sorry for sounding like a skipping record


OK, i'll try explain what she told me:

this happened at night, she was asleep when she sudden wake up by something that was crawling up her arm,  she jumps out of bed and tries to rub the thing of her arm ,.... the scolopendra gives her a bite in the arm and felt on hte ground. She then turns on the light and sees the pede crawling away,... (see pictures)

at firt she didn(t feel any pain, besides the bit itself, so she goes back to sleep without any problems. the morning after she goes to work and by the noon she begins to feel dissy (how do you spell that?) and she's got a terrible pain in her neck. she goes to a hospital and stays there for 8 days, feeling horrible and still with a pain in her neck.

Now 2 months later she still has by time to time the same synonims of that bite: dissy (spelling i don't know) and pain in her neck,....

she has asked doktors in Aruba but they couldn't give her any advice. the strangest thing i think is that's she's been bit in the arm and still is feeling pain in her neck.


Hopefully you can understand what i just said.



greetz


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ines68 _
> *Do not remember, but I will ask the next time I see her *


Thankyou!


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 30, 2003)

Wow, Steven! Those are some major symptoms! That species must give a nasty bite for the symptoms to last so long!

The word is spelled dizzy I think, but dissy is close enough!  

I understood your post just fine!

I'm sorry to hear your friend suffered such serious symptoms. Very interesting, though! I hope her pain leaves her soon! I'm not real sure why it is lasting her so long. 

Here is some extra info on centipede venom for those of you who haven't heard this info yet. 

Centipede venom is a complex mixture of various enzymes (proteinases and esterases), lipids, polysaccharides, 5-hydroxytryptamine, and histamine.

In cats, a particular toxin (a type of protein) in the venom caused blood pressure to rise (Scolopendra subspinipes). In toads it caused cardiac arrest (Scolopendra morsitans). Atropine is said to have relieved the arrest. 

On the pain caused by a centipede bite, I have also read that novocaine gives temporary relief, and that a 60,000 volt stun gun (used for self-defense) while uncomfortable, will remove the pain entirely. 

All centipede venoms work on different people different ways due to their various biochemical makeups. 

Not much study has been done on centipede venom. I look forward to reading and hearing more about it!

Best wishes,

Paul


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## Steven (Jul 31, 2003)

thanx Paul,....


now i know a little more about the venom of centipedes.
like you said there's very little info available about the effects of a scolopendra bite.

should we go for a Scolopendra subspinipes for the guy who has bit her?



greetz


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## phoenixxavierre (Jul 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by gongyles _
> *thanx Paul,....
> 
> 
> ...


You're welcome!  

Actually I spent some time searching the web for centipedes in Aruba and all I could find was someone who had been there and collected the same species as pictured, at least the coloration was the same I think. I can try to find that web page again and see if I can find an email for the guy and email him. Perhaps he knows what species it is. He said he caught them in cups on Aruba and that they had a bad bite! I'll see if I can't find that page again and relay the colors to see if they're a match and then email him! It's late now, but tomorrow or the next day I'll get on that!

Best wishes,

Paul


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## Steven (Jul 31, 2003)

Hey Paul,

that'll be great,....
thanx a lot for your effort 

very intresting,... actually i didn't know that there were so many different species on al those carribean islands :? 



greetz


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## phoenixxavierre (Aug 2, 2003)

Hi Steven,

I emailed the fellow who collected in Aruba and received no response. He used to put out an animal/invert newsletter. I'll PM you his email address and perhaps you can get some response from him.

Best wishes!


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## phoenixxavierre (Aug 17, 2003)

Hi,

I received an email from the gentleman who has been in Aruba. He saw the pics and said it is one of the Aruban species. He said it grows very large and is closely related to the giant South American pedes that were imported a while back. He said that like all island centipedes, it spends most of its life underground to escape the hot tropical sunlight. He also said they could be found occasionally running on roads or in the desert after rain. Figured I would pass it on.

Peace,

Paul


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## Steven (Aug 18, 2003)

Thanx a lot P.,... i've send an email to the adress you gave me,... but till now,... no respons.

very nice to hear somrthing more about arubian pedes,... have they ever ben offerd on the petmarket?



greetz


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## phoenixxavierre (Aug 20, 2003)

> _Originally posted by gongyles _
> *Thanx a lot P.,... i've send an email to the adress you gave me,... but till now,... no respons.
> 
> very nice to hear somrthing more about arubian pedes,... have they ever ben offerd on the petmarket?
> ...


Steven,

You're welcome. I sent a second email with more questions but no response yet.

They've not been offered on the market that I've seen.

Take care.


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