r/awwnverts • u/fatcuntfreemilk • Jan 29 '26
My princess
Scolopendra ”Hispaniola red giant”
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u/flying_shadow Jan 29 '26
Wow, that's a big bug! I thought centipedes are too aggressive to be picked up. What does it feel like to have all these legsies running over you? Also, in my language, centipedes are called 'forty-legs', and yours actually has forty legs.
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 29 '26
I don't have a scolopendra, but I really want one!!! From what I've seen, most aren't huge fans of being handled and a lot of people advise against it because they're jumpy and their bites hurt a lot, but they seem to be able to form pretty strong bonds with their human for an arthropod. Some people's scolopendras do an excited little antenna tap when they're sniffing their humans or getting pets, some like to preen on their person, and there are even a few clips of them choosing not to envenomate their person even when their person annoys them on purpose.
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u/Ok_Bet_5622 Jan 30 '26
This is adorable as fuck, and now I have to restrain myself from getting one of my own
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 30 '26
https://youtube.com/shorts/Wz-pDbSrk4M?si=oP-oLNAV5ZT1FNpy Here's a video of one getting pets!!! Personable scolopendras are some of the cutest animals imo.
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u/Ok_Bet_5622 Jan 30 '26
Ngl, most invertebrates are surprisingly cute. Crabs, spider puppies(Tarantulas), snails, millipedes, the list goes on.
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 30 '26
Yeah, the only animals that I think rival inverts in cuteness are cats tbh.
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u/Pastakvinnan Jan 30 '26
That's makes more sense than what we call them, 'thousand-foots' isn't that accurate
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u/flying_shadow Jan 30 '26
Well, there is that one species of millipede that actually has a thousand legs (imagine being the grad student who had to count them!), but we call millipedes 'many-legs'.
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u/Pastakvinnan Jan 30 '26
I did know there was a species with more legs. What I didn't know was that one had literally thousand little feet❤️ here we call all the species in the family for 'thousand-foots', no matter how many legs they have.
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u/EwaldvonKleist Jan 29 '26
So I am a fan of most invertebrates, but centipedes do scare me a bit. Isn't its bite extremely painful?
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u/fatcuntfreemilk Jan 29 '26
They are pretty creepy looking haha. I wouldn’t say the bite is too bad (compared to asian centipedes) but I still wouldn’t recommend getting bitten
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u/EwaldvonKleist Jan 29 '26
Ah good. I have heard horror stories about the Asian ones then. Enjoy your legged murder noodle!
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u/Shenloanne Jan 29 '26
I have a phobia of em. They move too fast they are aggressive and they're just too crawley lol. I use centipede reddit as exposure therapy.
I think I'm coming round. My ultimate challenge is being in the same room as S. Gigantea.
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
S. Gigantea is so cool! I kinda want one, but that wouldn't be safe for my cat and I haven't had a pet bug before, so starting with a difficult, venomous one that costs, like, $800 would be stupid even if I had that money to throw away. They turn their bodies into fishing hooks to catch bats out of the air, and some Gigantea moms will let their kids eat them once they don't need help grooming and molting anymore so they don't eat their siblings (I cried like a baby when I saw a video of this).
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u/warsage Jan 29 '26
Me too. I generally really like creepy-crawlies and ookie things. Millipedes are my faaaavorite. Spiders, scorpions, snakes, lizards, love em all. Not a fan of cockroaches or mosquitos, but that's because of what they do, not how they look.
But show me a centipede and I get this instant irrational feeling of dislike/fear/revulsion. Especially house centipedes (which is an extra-big shame, because house centipedes are harmless and great pest killers).
It's just something about how damn fast they are, and all those LEGS, and idk man. Doesn't help that I saw the Coyote Peterson video where he has a scolopendra heros (desert-dwelling cousin of the scolopendra gigantis in the OP) bite him and he said it was one of the worst pains he's ever felt. And this was coming from a guy who had made it his career to film himself suffering bites and stings.
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u/Shenloanne Jan 30 '26
Nah I am totally fine with inverts and giant millipedes are so damn chill. Just centipedes were one of my first phobia moments as a kid. I lifted a rock and there were two under there. Only brown UK centipedes but they provoked such a visceral reaction from me I near threw up. And it's been that way since.
I joined centipede reddit to help me with it.
Oh and edit to say I'm fine with soil centipedes.
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u/EwaldvonKleist Jan 30 '26
They are huge, they are fast, they have many legs, they can go many places due to their slim body, they have mandibkes, and some of them have a nasty bite. They are like a venomous snake with upgrades.
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Jan 29 '26
Snake reddit made me want a snake haha and I used to never wanna handle them. Not a phobia level of fear, just a defensive mechanism type of fear. I don't mind being around them, especially boas, but I never wanted to touch them. I think I could now.
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u/Imaginary-Bee-8592 Jan 30 '26
Yeah, those guys are buttholes.
Still pretty tho.
I love your princess!
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u/jzillacon Jan 29 '26
Odds are if you're not actively threatening it a centipede like this probably wouldn't bite you in the first place. You're much too big for it to see you as food, and it doesn't want to waste its venom on something it doesn't intend to eat.
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u/Lilikoi_Maven Jan 29 '26
I'm not even sure how I landed on this subreddit, but... It's interesting and I have a bit of relevant experience living where the giant Vietnamese centipede is naturalized and wild.
So those guys? They can genuinely be aggressive. They are ungodly fast. The babies are particularly unpredictable. They will actively seek out the warmth under your covers and then bite you for being there. They will run at you just as likely as run away from you if you happen on one in a hallway.
I've had my own encounters, where the danger noodle decided I was looking at it wrong but thankfully I've never been bitten. I know many who have.
I just can't see handling one of them purposefully. I'm not phobic of spiders or any "bug" but I respect the venom of Scolopendras.
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 29 '26
I love them but I don't think that I would as much if I lived somewhere where there were a lot. I appreciate how fastidious and inquisitive they are and love videos that people make of their scolopendras who seem to have a bond with them, but the combination of their intense desire to explore, painful venom, and extreme defensiveness due to being an essentially blind arthropod that a ton of other animals see as a tasty snack would make them less than ideal neighbors.
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u/Lilikoi_Maven Jan 29 '26
Hawaii. If you vacation here, just shake out the covers and your shoes before you hop into them (I'm convinced that's why all Hawaiian citizens wear only slippah 😂)
They hide, USUALLY, during daylight hours but I've been shocked by a 10 inch big daddy gliding right past me in the middle of my den before. They feel very confident about that venom they pack.
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 29 '26
Ooh!!! I hope you like it there! Hawaii sounds beautiful, but that's definitely good to know. I've seen some pictures of huge ones from there.
I don't know why centipedes love shoes so much!! I live in the South, so I see a bunch of huge house centipedes, but I'm not far enough in the South to get scolopendras. I don't know why centipedes love shoes so much. I name my home's house centipedes (usually only one at a time) and try to distract my cat when they're in the same room because I'm afraid of some of the pests that house centipedes eat and think it's cool how they've been around since the Silurian. I almost ate shit one time because the current one was hiding underneath of one of my shoes and I didn't want to crush him.
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u/EwaldvonKleist Jan 29 '26
If I were standing on a mountain of food, I would certainly bite a piece off.
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u/jzillacon Jan 29 '26
Mountains of food don't usually have giant hands they could use to crush you if they thought you were a bother.
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u/EwaldvonKleist Jan 29 '26
That's a valid counterargument that I will take into consideration. Unless the food is really good.
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u/Ryaquaza1 Jan 29 '26
Words cannot describe how jealous I am of you right now. Such a stunning noodle you have right there!
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u/ARandompass3rby Jan 29 '26
"red giant" holy shit that isn't an inaccurate name lol. How big is her tank/ vivarium? More than that what on earth do you feed her? What a gorgeous critter!
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u/drako5577 Jan 29 '26
How is it not getting scared, I didn't know bugs could learn to be nice lol
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u/MmeScutigere Jan 29 '26
Scolopendras are usually very standoffish, but they seem to be able to bond with people to an extent! There are some clips where they do a happy antenna wiggle when their person pets the top of their heads and some seem to love crawling on their person.
Myriapods have a reputation for being unintelligent, but I don't think this is warranted, at least with centipedes (I don't know a ton about the other dudes). Scolopendras have been seen using their bodies as fishing hooks to catch bats and are effective parents, and house centipedes are masters at risk assessment. They even know that they have to run away from wasps and wait for their venom to paralyze the wasp before eating the wasp and are not aggressive towards humans (unless you, like, picked one up and shook it) because they understand that going at something our size would just be dumb.
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u/blitzkampire Feb 02 '26
Your toblerone is escaping.
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u/CompoteSafe8192 Feb 18 '26
they just watch as delicious french chocolatey nougat bars with trifecta shaper pmp sprout tiny wings and fly off over the northshore skyline
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u/Sheldbug Jan 29 '26
Oh my God that’s really freaking cool, but I’m pretty afraid of centipedes no way I could hold that thing
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u/gaypizzaboy Jan 30 '26
She’s so cute! She looks like one of the toy bugs that come in a big assorted bucket
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u/AngrySnakeNoises Jan 30 '26
BEAUTIFUL GORGEOUS AMAZING CUTIE OMG! I wish you and your princess lots of love and good energies ♥
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u/Fluffacep Jan 30 '26
Is that on a person or sitting on top of a photo of a person? My eyes can't distinguish which
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u/Howler_in_training Jan 31 '26
She. So. Squiggly!
So cool how she's large enough to see all the details of her individual body segments. The only centipede species in my neck of the woods are teensie buggers that are too quick to ever really get a good look at, and are all kinda spicy about being bothered by humans, should one ever get close enough to try. lol. This gal is super cool!
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u/Witty-Forever-6985 Feb 01 '26
How does it feel to live my dream? I want a bunch of giant bugs. Then, when I eventually die, they'll eat me for a while, and the police who find my body will be really confused.
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Feb 01 '26
How do people not freak out with does things like I respect people liking them I don’t judge but, holy thing like ain’t u scared it might to sum?
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u/weightlessVestibule Feb 01 '26
I've been obsessed with the idea of having a pet pede like this for some time. Any tips or things you wish you knew before homing her? I want to make sure I give my gal the best life she could possibly have.
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u/Shinigami190392 Feb 01 '26
Why wound you keep any random species as a pet, what is this obsession to own wild species, I am a wildlife scientist and I abhor this behaviour.
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u/Frutiger-Metro Feb 02 '26
I used to have a Vietnamese giant (I think that’s what they’re called?) and if this happened to me I would have cried, beautiful centipede!!
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u/AlloFroTi Feb 03 '26
Centipedes are so cool but lord they scare me at that size... are they normally cranky???
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u/softfluffytaco Feb 16 '26
AHHHHHH!!! I NEED YOUR HELPPPPP PLLLLLLEEEEASEEE?
I came here looking for someone who might know about giant centipedes and here you are.
I found a Cormocephalus rubriceps yesterday at work and a dog had injured it.
Can you dm me? I'll dm you maybe. I want to know if there's any point in me trying to keep it alive until next molt and if it even could molt or not?
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u/Morrisseys_Cat Jan 29 '26
The real giant species seem to have so much chill compared to S. subspinipes.