Centipedes: The story of a battle with fear that came to a happy ending.

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
My fascination with centipedes came about when I was a 12 year old sadistic kid that liked to catch various wild bugs and watch them kill each other in a jar. :embarrassed: The large S polymorpha that I collected while vacationing in AZ killed everything that I threw at it, scorpions, mantids, spiders. I can't remember releasing it but it probably got released into an ant pile (jerk kid me). It never occurred to me that I could keep it as a pet. That memory stuck with me and I regarded the centipede as the most formidable predator out of all the arthropods in one on one combat (ants excluded). {Now a days I don't even like to watch Bug Wars because it seems like a self indulgent sadistic practice (but still enjoy watching a master hunter kill it's prey)}. Years later I saw an S. dehaani for sale and it dawned on me that I could have a giant fast moving killing machine for a pet. I immediately inquired with the shopkeeper about the centipede. He told me that he owned one and it tried to attack him every time it opened its enclosure and described the painful bite of dehaani to me. This is the first time I feared a centipede, but it still intrigued me. I wanted to own one but was discouraged by the tale of the demon dehaani (subspinipes at the time). Later I started getting into venomous snakes and ended up keeping various rattlesnakes. I still wanted a giant centipede but rarely ever saw one for sale in the pet stores. About that time I caught an S. heros in Patagonia and had it in the deli cup. It looked amazing, (black body with red head smack dab in arizonensis red body territory). I thought of taking it home but didn't know what I had. I set the rock back down and let it go.

After getting married and getting out of venomous snakes for a long period I decided that I really wanted a dehaani. They still terrified me but that was all the more reason for me to want it. I have a pattern of doing everything that scares me: fear of heights led me to go cliff diving and rock climbing until I had a few really close calls, fear of confined spaces led me to spelunking, etc. Dehaani still being on the list prompted me to try to purchase one. My wife protested fiercely for 12 years every time I mentioned it. She told me that she would allow me to keep a saltwater crocodile before a centipede. I jested her to be careful what she said lest I get permitted for crocodilians. After 12 years of marriage we walked into a pet store intent on finding Poecilotheria metallica. I finally got a job that would give me time for a breeding project and I wanted it to be something that would turn a little profit and help me get back into the pet trade (my lifelong love) with hopes of working for myself: Wife convinced that we were going to make some extra money in tow. I spotted a large orange bodied centipede under the counter and inquired about it. The shopkeeper (with dreadlocks in his hair) eagerly opened the container and let the 9" S. heros climb onto his hand. He made it look like a kitty cat the way he comfortably handled it. It was marked $150 USD. There were also S. dehaani under the counter which he cautiously took out and handled with shaking hands.

At that moment I decided that I wanted to captive breed S. heros. After two weeks of persuasion I convinced my wife that I could wild catch them locally and she reluctantly agreed (because of the price tag). Then I came in for the kill. I couldn't justify jeopardizing such a valuable animal without succeeding with a more affordable animal. Two weeks later I bought my first dehaani from the same shopkeeper. He told me that he had bitten by a dehaani right after the last time I saw him and he no longer handled them but he still handled heros. He compared the pain to that of a serious rattlesnake bite but a shorter duration. Over the span of the winter I built up my stock to eight (my target number for my project) and relentlessly searched the desert for S. heros (my target being ten adult females and a handful of males. Still afraid of handling centipedes and after many nights hiking in the dark I encountered my first wild S. heros and realized I had to know how to handle them to wild catch them. I got over it.. Now I have 11 (8 WC plings, 2 adults and one sub-adult). One dehaani is holding a clutch of eggs. I want to do this for a living somehow (work in the pet trade as my own boss). And I am still delightfully afraid of dehaani enough so to permanently fuel my fascination (and do not handle them with bare hands). There is nothing more exhilarating than fear. We are getting a divorce now! :rofl:
 
Last edited:

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
I take animals (all kinds but more reptiles and arthropods) to schools, churches, nursing homes, preschools etc. to share. It always amazes me at the expectations people have about what a snake (et al) feels like. The majority think they will be slimy. I never force anyone to touch anything and I always say it's ok if they don't want to touch. Especially with children, I want this to be a well remembered encounter. Sometimes a child will want to touch but have a little fear. I will offer to hold the head and just expose a belly or back and they aren't so afraid. Then I see that beautiful light come on! They have overcome something and are a step closer to wanting to know more. Knowledge is power.

It's ok if someone doesn't want to keep a certain animal as a pet. There are things I don't want to keep. But it should always be for the right reasons, and not out of fear due to lack of knowledge.

I'm doing my part, one little pair of hands at a time.
 

Staehilomyces

Arachnoprince
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,514
I support your cause. While I daresay many people would be against it, I will admit I have let several of my friends handle my centipedes, though only the ones I have worked with; I ALWAYS specify that wild centipedes will never be as docile. Every time, I have seen some new respect dawn. On the downside, I can't help but notice that many of my peers are frighteningly zoosadistic. On the trip to Cape York Peninsula I detailed in another thread (I think it was titled "A story of tropical rainforests, giant centipedes, and one very b***chy teacher"), everyone admired one of the staff members for being a shovel warrior and killing a baby death adder. In spite of the fact that there were several large containers within meters of where the snake was found, they fiercely maintained that killing the snake was the only way to resolve the situation. I just wish I knew it was illegal at the time. Anyway, my classmates seemed frighteningly amused/awed by the whole drama, and not one of them felt sorry for the poor snake.

If I thought that was bad, when a large Ethmostigmus rubripes centipede showed up (the third one we found on the trip), I was in for a shock. This was the first centipede that showed up in front of everyone; all the others were either by me alone, or accompanied by only a few others. At one point, a block of wood fell on it, and when it was removed, the centipede lay still. I, alone, knew it wasn't dead as it was grooming its antennae, but no one else knew, and seemed rather happy about its apparent death. Eventually, when I attempted to coax it onto my hand, it got up and made a break for it. Nearly everyone shouted "Awwwwww" as though something they were all anticipating had been cancelled. Worse still, when I finally caught it, and was preparing to release it, they even offered to pay me to kill it. People these days...:rage::(

On the plus side, many people, both my IRL friends and people on the internet, have been changed by seeing how I interact with these creatures, and especially, as aforementioned, after being allowed to hold one of my pedes. I suppose a change is a win.
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
For liability sake I would never take a venomous or dangerous animal to interact with children or the elderly. I take things like bearded dragons, ball pythons, millipedes, rabbits, puppies etc.

It's just a little educational sideline I do. With the elderly people it often brings back memories of their childhood, which is always good. Once in a nursing home I put a puppy in a 25-year-old man's arms. He had been in a car wreck and in a coma for six months. One of the nurses had asked me to come in and let him feel it so we put his hand on the puppy and he moved his hand to grasp the fur. It was the first time in six months he had shown response. Animals can bring out the best in people.
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
For liability sake I would never take a venomous or dangerous animal to interact with children or the elderly. I take things like bearded dragons, ball pythons, millipedes, rabbits, puppies etc.

It's just a little educational sideline I do. With the elderly people it often brings back memories of their childhood, which is always good. Once in a nursing home I put a puppy in a 25-year-old man's arms. He had been in a car wreck and in a coma for six months. One of the nurses had asked me to come in and let him feel it so we put his hand on the puppy and he moved his hand to grasp the fur. It was the first time in six months he had shown response. Animals can bring out the best in people.
And I know any animal can be dangerous, but I only take experienced handlers with me and we hold the animal safely; like holding the front legs of a bearded dragon so it can't lunge. Holding a ball python without enough distance to strike and always looking for the first sign of irritation or unrest.

The educational part of it is what I'm after; teaching children not to move too quickly or reach from in front of an animal and supporting back legs or belly on certain animals to put them at ease. I always have an intro about each animal with some husbandry info and fascinating facts.
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
And I know any animal can be dangerous, but I only take experienced handlers with me and we hold the animal safely; like holding the front legs of a bearded dragon so it can't lunge. Holding a ball python without enough distance to strike and always looking for the first sign of irritation or unrest.

The educational part of it is what I'm after; teaching children not to move too quickly or reach from in front of an animal and supporting back legs or belly on certain animals to put them at ease. I always have an intro about each animal with some husbandry info and fascinating facts.
I've done a few educational venues. I've included rattlesnakes in displays. One on one, after the show if anyone hangs around (I don't advertise it) on occasion I have "tubed" the snake in a plexiglass tube to secure it and allow people to feel the rough scales, (students over 18 only). People are usually thrilled to get to touch a rattlesnake and they gain a new found fascination. No one that I know of has started handling as a result.
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
People are always amazed to touch an animal for the first time. It never feels as creepy as they had imagined. It's always great to dispel fears. :vamp:
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
I'm gonna run out of things that scare me at this rate. My obituary will read something like shot to death in the jungle of the Congo while dying of ebola with a green mamba biting down on both hands and being torn to shreds by a crocodile while swimming in the river noodling for Goliath Tiger fish. It's pretty inevitable at this point.
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
I'm gonna run out of things that scare me at this rate. My obituary will read something like shot to death in the jungle of the Congo while dying of ebola with a green mamba biting down on both hands and being torn to shreds by a crocodile while swimming in the river noodling for Goliath Tiger fish. It's pretty inevitable at this point.
Well don't forget that grizzly bear that was chasing you and the zombies....
 

Scoly

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 4, 2013
Messages
488
What's that Brad guy like? I've heard pretty bad things from Mastigoproctus about him. At one point, I heard that he apparently bullied someone who was mentioning how they handle centipedes into handling a dehaani to prove him wrong. Needless to say, he simply resorted to a ban.
I don't know him personally, just minor Facebook interaction, then a ban from his group for correcting him on some completely wrong advice he gave a newbie (while in the same sentence reassuring him that he should listen to him because he is an expert). I have since heard he's banned quite a few people for disagreeing with him on his page, which is sad because so many newbies are drawn to that page and only get to hear his version of things, which in some cases is plain wrong, and in the case of the advice he gave, downright dangerous.

He clearly does have a lot of experience with centipedes, and is probably "right" about a lot of things. But I think he's just really afraid of people thinking or finding out he was wrong about something, because he portrays himself a centipede expert, and that's obviously a big part of his identity. The sad thing, which I hope he realises soon, is that no one is going to loose respect for him for being wrong once in a while. In fact you gain respect by admitting you are wrong. But people will, and already are, loosing respect for him because of his petty and defensive behaviour, and he's rapidly losing credibility within the hobby because of this. It's an easy fix really, he just needs to separate his expertise from his ego, accept when he is wrong, and not treat that as a threat to his persona or status as an expert, invite back everyone he's blocked from his page, and give each one of them a Hardwickei pedeling from the quadruple clutch he had last year as a peace offering :D
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
I don't know him personally, just minor Facebook interaction, then a ban from his group for correcting him on some completely wrong advice he gave a newbie (while in the same sentence reassuring him that he should listen to him because he is an expert). I have since heard he's banned quite a few people for disagreeing with him on his page, which is sad because so many newbies are drawn to that page and only get to hear his version of things, which in some cases is plain wrong, and in the case of the advice he gave, downright dangerous.

He clearly does have a lot of experience with centipedes, and is probably "right" about a lot of things. But I think he's just really afraid of people thinking or finding out he was wrong about something, because he portrays himself a centipede expert, and that's obviously a big part of his identity. The sad thing, which I hope he realises soon, is that no one is going to loose respect for him for being wrong once in a while. In fact you gain respect by admitting you are wrong. But people will, and already are, loosing respect for him because of his petty and defensive behaviour, and he's rapidly losing credibility within the hobby because of this. It's an easy fix really, he just needs to separate his expertise from his ego, accept when he is wrong, and not treat that as a threat to his persona or status as an expert, invite back everyone he's blocked from his page, and give each one of them a Hardwickei pedeling from the quadruple clutch he had last year as a peace offering :D
The difference between the desire to be right and the desire to be correct is the ability to correct oneself when proven wrong.
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
I suppose a change is a win.
I wanted to photoshop a centipede into this depiction of you being a kick but centipede whisperer......but I have never fiddled around with photoshop much so the depiction is of you holding a shotgun instead. You are the one that gave me the courage to handle S. heros, a must for wild catching my initial breeding stock. Respect!
nedkelly7.jpg
 

Staehilomyces

Arachnoprince
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,514
Haha thanks for that! As a matter of fact I spent 45 minutes last night handling my E. rubripes without any aggression. Looks like she's well on her way to becoming a YouTube star.
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
Haha thanks for that! As a matter of fact I spent 45 minutes last night handling my E. rubripes without any aggression. Looks like she's well on her way to becoming a YouTube star.
No one got the Australian folk hero joke. Ahh, too obscure. :(
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
I watched this the other day and thought of you. Although I am the one that handles with gloves as much as possible and Australian wildlife makes me want a suit of armor. Anyhow everyone will know who Ned Kelly is after this song. I'm thinking you would have told the Kelly gang that they could have dodged bullets better in light clothes.
 
Last edited:

Roachesintheivy

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
27
This is a story of my own childhood fear of centipedes. I'm posting it here for a sort of 'peer review' to see what you guys think. I intend to use this story to show people that they can get over the fears that dominate their lives if they put their hearts to it, as well as express my sadness at the relentless hate that centipedes and other arthropods face. Feel free to share this story if you know anyone who is scared of the bugs that you love so dearly. Hope you enjoy. (P.S. I'm unsure if I made any mention to images in the text - if so, the images are absent as this is purely the text).

Centipedes. They’ve got to be one of the world’s most hated creatures. I’ve seen people who keep dozens of scorpions and tarantulas as pets yet shudder in the proximity of one of these multi-legged arthropods. I’ll warn you now that this is quite a long post, but if you love centipedes already, or more importantly, are fighting a crippling centipede phobia, this is the read for you. Before I plunge into the story of my own relationship with these creatures, I’ll give you a bit of background information first.

Centipedes, like insects, arachnids and crustaceans, are arthropods – an enormously successful group of animals that have survived every great mass extinction in their path and today comprise almost 90% of all animal species. Centipedes were among the most ancient of the arthropods, indeed, the first ever known air-breathing land animal, known as Pneumodesmus newmani was a centipede-like creature. Within the arthropod family, centipedes belong to the group Myriapoda, along with the rather less menacing millipedes. Centipedes can be differentiated from the latter by the fact that they have only one pair of legs per segment, as well as their fast movements and predatory lifestyle. They are in fact among the most effective of all the invertebrate hunters prowling through the undergrowth. Larger species are capable of preying not only on other bugs, but on mice, rats, frogs, toads, birds and even small snakes, not to mention other arthropod predators such as spiders and scorpions. They also hunt bats – I’ll go into the full details of that later, as that knowledge was a key moment in my journey from fear to fascination. Centipedes are guided to their quarry by a pair of extremely sensitive antennae, which pick up the faintest of scents. They will persistently follow the chemical trail until they find their potential prey. Prey is subdued by a combination of brute strength and venom. A long muscular body is used to hold prey still in a manner alike to a python, aided by the centipede’s clawed legs. Then, a pair of specialised legs on the segment just behind the head deliver the final blow. They have been modified into a pair of venomous mandible like appendages (known as forcipules or maxillipeds) that puncture their prey’s skin/exoskeleton and deliver a potent venom.

So I presume you have enough to go off for now, and I hope that the absence of a picture of a huge, foot-long centipede right at the top of the page means that you are still reading this.

Some say that fear of centipedes and other “creepy-crawlies” such as spiders is instinctive. It is certain that some other fears certainly are. Fear of heights would have been helpful to the survival of ancestral humans, as potentially lethal drops would almost certainly have been a prevalent and deadly threat. Bugs are a different matter. From my experience, no child is born with the loathing you see in many an adult when in the presence of such creatures. If anything, they have an avid fascination of all things living, and bugs are no exception. But fear is contagious. Combine peer pressure, misguidance from parents, and fearmongering from the media, and you have all the ingredients for a severe, lifelong phobia. The simple sight of a parent stomping on that spider crouching in the corner prompts a child to react in the same way when presented with a similar situation. Even without any action, sometimes all it takes are a few words.

I vividly remember the words that sparked my childhood fear of centipedes. I was five years old, sitting in my house in Cairns, North Queensland. I was flipping through one of those children’s drawing books, that showed step by step details on how to draw various animals and whatnot, trying to find out what to draw next. We were learning about insects at preschool, so I thought a bug of some description would be most appropriate. I was searching amongst the plethora of six-legged creatures looking for something unique, but it was always the same old grasshoppers, ants and butterflies. I paused to consider a spider, but…everyone’s seen those. Then, I turned the page once more, and saw a strange and, as I recall saying, “awesome” creature. I was about to touch pen to paper when my father looked over my shoulder. “Ugh, centipedes,” he said. “Draw anything except one of those mongrels. They can kill you.” Lo and behold! The seeds of a phobia were sown.

So naturally, when it came to my first encounter with a centipede, there was a bit of pre-determined hate before the meeting. A favourite pastime of mine back then was turning the garden hose on full blast and pulverising the garden beds. It may explain why our plants never lasted longer than a week. Naturally, as you would have likely guessed, it was the setting of my first ever meeting with this demon of the bug world. Right out of the midst of the flooded garden, a centipede came running. It was doing no more than fleeing from the tsunami I had caused, but fleeing straight in my direction nonetheless. A child’s mind, warped by fear, gathered but one thing out of the situation. This was clearly a creature that wanted me dead. But before I knew it, it had disappeared benath the fence. Needless to say both my dreams and waking moments were dominated by the thought of that multi-legged monstrosity seeking vengeance upon me.

Four centipede-hating years later, I was in Brisbane, my family having moved there the year before (nothing to do with centipedes by the way). I was in the DVD store, looking for a show to buy, when a particular image caught my eye: the distinctive profile of Dionaea muscipula, the Venus Fly Trap, a plant that had fascinated me ever since I first saw them in Cairns. This seems nothing to do with my relationship with centipedes, but bear with me. Above the image were the words The Private Life of Plants, and below the image was a name that I see to this day as the number one cause for my love of nature: David Attenborough. Before I knew it, I was hooked. Every single one of his documentaries made me love the natural world outside more and more, and before I knew it, I had seen about fifteen of his series in the course of a few weeks. One day, after a typical day spent shopping, I bought home Life in the Undergrowth. Knowing what the series was about, I guessed that somewhere in the show, my bug-world adversary was lurking. I watched millipedes plough through the undergrowth, springtails leap extraordinary heights, and velvet worms hunt with their bizarre weaponry – all with a newfound awe. Then, after a dramatic fight between two tailless whipscorpions (Amblypygi), my nemesis appeared. It was a diminutive centipede that was, to my comfort, half the size of Attenborough’s little finger. But what followed was anything but diminutive. Out of a crevice in a Venezuelan cave came Scolopendra gigantea, the giant centipede, a creature with a body length exceeding 35 centimetres. I normally would have screamed NOPE! and blasted the TV into oblivion, but something about Attenborough’s voice kept me watching. Scolopendra scaled the wall of the cave with ease, and hung from the ceiling. What followed was both alarming and truly remarkable. It reached down into the open air with the front of its body, and within seconds, had a bat in the grasp of its many legs. Then, as the scene faded from the huge centipede to a landscape populated by giant earthworms, I realised something remarkable. While my fear certainly hadn’t gone, my hate had given way to sheer, utter respect and fascination.

With its villainous position in my mind eased, the centipede’s significance in my life faded also in the coming years. But I never forgot about the invertebrate predator so formidable it was able to turn the tables on small vertebrates. So it was that when I was in a pet shop, browsing the aquatic life on sale, something in the adjacent reptile section caught my eye. Atop several shelves of terrarium decorations were two plastic boxes, both labelled “large centipede”. “What harm can they do to me while in a box?” I asked myself, and with that in mind, I bought them. But at a mere twelve years old, I was not the most attentive owner. Before I knew it, almost six months elapsed where I hadn’t given my two centipedes one glance. Then, almost certain that they were stone dead, I reluctantly checked. One, a large dark green Ethmostigmus rubripes, was indeed dead. The other, a young male Scolopendra morsitans, miraculously survived my neglect. I whispered an apology (pointless, I know) and promised to take better care of him. He remains with me to this day, five years later.

I was quite proud of my progress at that moment. To go from someone who would not be able to sleep if he knew there was a centipede in the house to someone who kept them as pets was no small feat to me. Nevertheless, much as my fear had been eased, I saw those people who handled their centipedes as idiots who were just asking for an envenomation. Don’t get me wrong, I liked centipedes then, but I was still nervous about them.

Earlier this year, I joined the largest online database concerning invertebrates, Arachnoboards. The majority of the time I spend on there is browsing the myriapods section, which details centipedes and millipedes. In that forum, one member seemed to be unearthing startling observations regarding the intelligence of centipedes. Ever since Life in the Undergrowth, I suspected that centipedes were more intelligent than most bugs – the fact that they go through a specific procedure to catch bats, ignoring lesser prey like cockroaches and beetles along the way, suggested that they were hunting with a purpose, not relying on chance to bring them to their prey. As such, claims about the intelligence of centipedes seemed somewhat plausible to me. The user maintained that centipedes would eventually get used to handling, and will even respond to stimulus such as hand feeding by emerging whenever the owner’s hand was placed in the enclosure (I’m not in any way condoning the handling of centipedes, what I am detailing here is from my observations only). I was hesitant at first, knowing that centipedes weren’t exactly the friendliest of creatures. Even so, I decided to try it out on my Scolopendra morsitans, even though he was by far the jumpiest centipede in what was now a small collection of mine. Miraculously, after a week of gentle, cautious hand interactions, he became extremely docile, and no matter what showed no signs of aggression of any kind. He would take food from my fingers and even drink water out of my cupped hand. I could even (no joke) scratch him behind the head! That was the final, happy ending to my relationship with that individual, with centipedes, and with the bug world as a whole. I respected their formidability, be it their venom, speed, or just brute strength. Now, I have one more thing to respect them about: the fact that their behaviour showed me that there is no bold line separating bugs from other animals.

For those of you who think overcoming fear is stomping on that big ugly bug who in actuality is either scared to death of you or simply unaware of your presence, it’s not. Perhaps the fear is diminished, but the hate remains. Experience has showed me that it’s always better to get to know what you fear. It’s hard to hate something that you truly understand. Turning hate and fear into respect, fascination and love is truly one of the greatest feelings one can experience. When it comes to a peaceful, understanding relationship with the weird and wonderful creatures we share this planet with, knowledge is our ultimate ally; fear is the enemy. If we can better understand and appreciate all the animals that inhabit this world, not just the ones that “look cuter” or whatever, then the world we live in will become a brighter place for all.

So that's it. Let me know what you think!
I have no intention of getting a centipede as of yet, but this story gave me a second thought. That's amazing, and so are you- the ending of this story is especially heartwarming.
 

Mr Centipede

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 30, 2018
Messages
15
Are you sure centipedes were the first animals to breath air. (TBH I'm not sure either but just asking). Also awesome story I am a centipede lover.
 

Staehilomyces

Arachnoprince
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,514
Pneumodesmus newmani is considered the first terrestrial animal, and was a centipede-like creature. I didn't say it was a centipede.
 
Top