This week we are looking into one of the most feared centipedes and it is purely based on its looks! Another reason why we can't judge a book by its cover.. The house centipede is an amazing hunter of all things we really don't want in our homes.    Patreon -> https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46499107 IG: https://www.instagram.com/insects4fun/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085443614825 Email: [email protected]     Music from Lofi Girl featuring:  Sebastian Kamae, Sleepermqne, and HM Surf   Transcript:    Welcome to episode 62 of insects for fun! The weekly entomology podcast covering all things insect and arthropod! Oo that’s new… yup I have now opened the floodgates for all arthropods, and today we will be looking at just one of many oddballs commonly called a house centipede.    House centipedes are a group of arthropods in the order scutigeromorpha which happens to be one of many centipedes, but these ones don’t resemble a centipede at all, and they actually look and share more similarities with insects such as full compound eyes, and long jointed legs. Compound eyes means that they can detect movement at incredible speeds, but their vision is actually super blurry. Imagine looking at a wall of monitors and each monitor is showing the same image. It’s super easy to notice when something is moving but you can forget about having a nice big clean image. And speaking of clean images.. the house centipede is definitely not a sight for the faint of heart, especially for those who are scared of creepy crawlies. Their bodies are only between 1 and 1.5 inches in length and slender, but they have 15 pairs of legs which are long and surround the entire body making them appear much larger. The hind legs are actually longer than the forelegs so they can overlap while running without getting tangled and females have two extremely long legs at the very back of their bodies which act as secondary antennae. Honestly if you’ve seen one before you’ll never forget how it looks because they’re really wild. They also happen to be incredibly fast, reaching speeds of 0.4 meters per second or 1.3 feet which is pretty good, and they can traverse almost any surface. There are 25 genera which means there are at least 25 species, but I honestly can’t say how many there are. The most well known species is Scutigera coleoptrata with Scutigera in reference to bear a shield and the Coleoptrata part is like coleoptera which is the order for Beetles because these centipedes have a thorax that’s kind of similar.    But where did these things even come from? And where can you find them now? Well, house centipedes actually originated in the mediterranean, but are now commonly found throughout the world, and because they live in homes and close to humans it’s pretty easy for them to travel. That being said house centipedes didn’t just randomly appear in our homes.They started out in the wild like the roaches from last episode, and these guys prefer to live in damp, cool, and dark places like under logs, tree bark, rocks etc. They’re a nocturnal group and are rarely seen in daylight. I personally almost never see them in the wild, but I have encountered them in buildings. Actually the first time I saw one was in 4th grade at school. I had no idea what it was but it was so crazy looking to me that I really wanted a closer look. These things are incredibly fast though as I mentioned, and I had no such luck.  Another feature to house centipedes which adds to their swiftness would be tracheal lungs. With these the centipede can breathe while it’s on the run!    Okay so now we know where they started and where they dwell in nature, but why our homes? Well! You’ll be happy to know that these critters don’t care about your food, books, or furniture etc. The house centipede is a predator and prefers live food, which it has no problem catching by the way, and because of this you usually only encoun