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House Centipede — printable fact sheet
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House Centipede
Scutigera coleoptrata
Scutigera coleoptrata is the fast, leggy horror that sprints across bathroom floors, and it is worth appreciating rather than crushing: it is a specialist predator of exactly the things people do not want indoors - cockroaches, silverfish, bed bugs, moth larvae, spiders and flie…
Did you know?
- Despite their alarming appearance, house centipedes are actually beneficial in homes because they prey on pests like cockroaches, termites, and spiders.
- House centipedes can catch and hold several insects at once, pinning some with their legs while eating another. Their compound eyes are unlike those of any other centipede and closer in structure to an insect's, an independent evolution of image-forming vision within the group. They live for several years, unusually long for a household arthropod, and continue adding leg pairs with each moult as juveniles until they reach the adult 15.
What I learned
Draw the house centipede
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