What Kind of Bug Is This?

Vaughn McMillan

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Found this guy on the dining room wall, and don't recall ever seeing one of these before. Any of you know what it is? The pic is bigger than actual size. He's about 1" or so long.

Mystery Bug 500.jpg
 
Did a little web searching (it's tough searching when all you have is an image). Looks like it's a house centipede. Second pic down on this page:

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/cent.html

Turns out they're beneficial...they eat cockroaches and flies and such. I turned this guy loose in the woodpile outside.
 
Vaughn, thanks for the info. I've seen these from time to time in our house, but just killed them not knowing what kind of bug they were.
 
Yup, that's a centipede all righty... yeah, they eat nasty buggies,


My mother is horribly afraid of those guys, to the point where when one showed up there was a shriek and her equivalent of the cartoon wife on the chair bit... she's gotten better about them, but only slightly.
 
We very seldom have those at homes, and even less "escolopendras" or scolopendrae they might be beneficial but the can sting or bite you. We find them usually under stones in the garden or when digging holes or in rotten stumps.

Black millipedes that roll themselves are quite common in gardens, in homes the most common ones are what we call "silver fish" which is a literal translation from "pececillo de plata" although its name is lepisma.

Is this forum drifting to entomology??:D
 
...Is this forum drifting to entomology??:D
Nah, that would probably "bug" too many people. :rofl:

We also have silver fish in the States.

I've seen other types of centipedes, but never one like this one. Most bugs that make it into my house die of unnatural causes, but for some reason I decided to let this guy go. (And that was before I learned they were beneficial.)
 
Nah, that would probably "bug" too many people. :rofl:

We also have silver fish in the States.

I've seen other types of centipedes, but never one like this one. Most bugs that make it into my house die of unnatural causes, but for some reason I decided to let this guy go. (And that was before I learned they were beneficial.)

That pun is bad even for you and Stu trying to top each other (sink lower than each other?) after 3 pages of back and forth posts. :groan:

I wonder if these guys also eat powder post type beetles?
 
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