I became familiar with the house centipede about 8 years ago: When I once turned the kitchen light on at night, one on the floor not too far from my feet reacted to the light by turning, perhaps two or three times, very quickly in a tight circle about half the circumference of a Frisbee before shooting under the fridge. Gone. A few days later, after my initial creepy feelings wore off, I saw it casually cruising in the daylight hours along the hallway baseboard, and stopping every now and then for a survey. I quickly got an empty glass jar with cover and managed to gently coax the unknown creature inside, whereby I then popped it on my antique computer desk and went online to find out what it was. Since then, I've grown to appreciate them, have seen a few here and there, and leave them be. They don't bite if handled with care-- at least by my experience, are poisonous to their prey (probably not so much to us if they did bite) have good eyesight and are fairly fast. They also can climb some walls, at least when young and smaller. Ostensibly, they are excellent predators that eat the kinds of things many of us dislike and that are hard to get rid of, like cockroaches, firebrats, silverfish, and even bedbugs!
I became familiar with the house centipede about 8 years ago: When I once turned the kitchen light on at night, one on the floor not too far from my feet reacted to the light by turning, perhaps two or three times, very quickly in a tight circle about half the circumference of a Frisbee before shooting under the fridge. Gone. A few days later, after my initial creepy feelings wore off, I saw it casually cruising in the daylight hours along the hallway baseboard, and stopping every now and then for a survey. I quickly got an empty glass jar with cover and managed to gently coax the unknown creature inside, whereby I then popped it on my antique computer desk and went online to find out what it was. Since then, I've grown to appreciate them, have seen a few here and there, and leave them be. They don't bite if handled with care-- at least by my experience, are poisonous to their prey (probably not so much to us if they did bite) have good eyesight and are fairly fast. They also can climb some walls, at least when young and smaller. Ostensibly, they are excellent predators that eat the kinds of things many of us dislike and that are hard to get rid of, like cockroaches, firebrats, silverfish, and even bedbugs!
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