Scolopendra Subspinipes

[Mastigoproctus]

This is actually a pinch report from a number of years ago, I was new to the hobby although rather experienced as far as Herps went but was seriously lacking in knowlage of invertebrates. At a small pet shop in Phoenix AZ I picked up a "Veitnames Giant Centipede" which I now know to be Dehaani. I was honestly horrified of centipedes at the time but was astonished of the size of this thing. Well I looked up a little about them on this very forum back in the day and even found a horror story of a "bite" by one where the guy went to the hospital and no pain meds worked at all. There was also a story of a young girl dying from a invenomation on the head in the Phillipens. Knowing all this and being an adventurous young man I one day decided "hey! I'm gonna let it walk across my hand in the bath tub!" And I put it in the bath tub by guiding it onto a stick and running to the bath room (stupid idea) then I carfully sit it in there. Well I stuck my hand in front of it and it walked on over. I thought to myself "I'm freaking superman!" Then I did it again, and again, and again, and again. I even held it and took this pic of it sleeping in my hand. Then I walked it back to its cage and sit it back in it. Over the next few weeks I kept handling it, being careful to always let it walk into my hand and not scaring it into my hand. I was letting it crawl up my arm one day and then it went up into my lower arm. I kinda squeezed it against my side and it pinched into my under arm and I was thinking "oh crap it but me!" And then quickly got it off and put it back in the tank. It kinda stung but went away quick, like a wasp sting. Little did I know this was a very sparing invenomation, quick and weak. So of course I gained some more cofidence like oh man these people must just have low pain tolerances but one day I was selling some kittens my cat had had and the guy wanted to check out a giant pede. It was hiding so I started poking through the moss it was in. Next thing you know it runs out and is running all across the sides of the tank so I put my hand in front of it and it ran on and stopped with its head at my middle finger tip. I'm gonna stop here for a sec and inform you of a few facts. I made 3 major mistakes here, 1, I was over confident and too fast. 2, I did not properly respect the animal space and privet time. And last but certainly not least, I wasn't paying attention to the animals behaviors once it was on my hand. I want to also add before I continue I have cracked a L4 vertebrate and herniated a disc, broken my left foot in 4 places, my right wrist and my collar bone, none of these things even came close to this pain. I would rather experience all of those at once instead of being invenomated by a Dehaani again. Back to the report, so it had stopped on my hand and appeared to be asleep. I showed the guy and said check it out and as I did the centipede lifted the front of its body and then slowly came back down and just as slowly it slipped its forciples into my finger. I immediately sat it in the enclosure and told the guy to hold on then I ran to the bathroom. I knew something was different this time, it was bleeding a ton but didn't hurt right away. As soon as I got to the bathroom I started running water over it and within 30 seconds the pain started growing. Over the next 3 minutes it had reached the point that I wanted to scream. With all of my strength I gathered myself and calmly as I could be, shaking rather hard with tears in my eyes, walked out and quickly rushed the couple out. They asked if I was ok, and I stuttered "ohh...pftttt..yeahhh. Uhhhhk.... I'm ffffffffftpttfinee." And I closed the door on them, waited a few seconds and then let out a onslaught of screams and profanities, swinging my hand as hard as I could and attempting to suck the venom out haha don't work btw haha anyway I had the person I was with at my apartment call the poisen control center and they told them I need to go to the emergency room right away. I was young just living on my own and had very little money so I couldn't afford that so I didn't go. I instead drove to a friends house and we figured we'd party it off so I would forget the pain. I had a few beers and we walked and talked in the park as I cried and yelled the occasional bad word. By sun down the pain was still in full force and I had taken lots of over the counter pain meds with no relief what so ever. Here is the full time line with some inaccuracies I'm sure due to the simple fact that this was now quite a few years ago: 10:30 am the people got to my apartment to see the kittens. 10:40am the Invenomation happened. 11:45am the pain peaked and held for around 10 to 15 hours. 12:00pm my had was massive, my fingertip red, purple and massive, and there were red streaks appearing up my arm to my chest which scared the heck out of me. 7:30am the next morning I awoke to go figure, horrible pain still. I wanna say around 10:30 it was actully calming down pretty good though. By 4:00pm or so it was aching but nothing like its former glory. My finger was hard as a rock and huge for something like 2 weeks and I have never felt something itch so freaking much. I don't care what anyone ever tells me, the worst pain a person can endure, I'm very certain is that of a Subspinipes full invenomation. That is endure with out going into shock from the sheer pain of it. At any rate I still am an avid handler of pedes and have since received 0 invenomations and I feel it is for a few reasons. 1 I don't hold known highly aggressive pedes like Subspinipes anymore. 2 I always respect the animal and watch its behaviors closely. 3 I make sure they only assosiates my sent with a safe place by allowing it to walk on my hand freely and even sometimes offer it food while on me, it creates I sense that it's just another piece of land to walk across and find food occasionally. I also know that Subspinipes is about as bad as it gets so if I am ever invenomated it can't be that bad, well at least I hope not. But again I will not handle medically significant specimens anymore either. Anyways I hope somebody who wants to be adventurous like I was reads this and thinks before picking up their Subspinipes. I suggest if you wanna do something that dangorus go try parachuteles sky diving, or free climbing, I'm sure they'll hurt less.