Not the Creepy Crawlies You Think They Are

 Spell-checked by Vinette

We paid just over $2 for all of this?!!?

Why Am I Writing This?

Centipedes are kind of scary with all those legs and that they bite. But I caught one with my bug catcher's kit to look at and learn about. It was a tiny centipede but I didn't touch it with my hands. I have a bug catcher kit from Dollar Tree that lets me catch them without getting hurt or hurting them. 

So, I caught the centipede and when I couldn't find out what kind it was for my worksheet, I decided to research all kinds of centipedes. This is what I found.

About Centipedes

I started with the kid-safe search engine called Kiddle. They have a kind of Wikipedia that is for kids and fact checked. Not just anyone can change it. 

According to Kiddle's wiki, all centipedes are venomous. This is kind of scary. I don't think all their venom can kill you but it wouldn't be fun to be bit by one. They also eat meat. I just hope there's never one big enough to eat a person.  According to AZ Animals, there are some that CAN kill a person. That's scary!

A lot of centipedes don't have eyes and I didn't see any on mine. They have a bunch of legs, but I was too lazy to count them while he was moving around so much. According to Kiddle, they can have between 15 and 191 pairs of legs. That's way too many to be a cute bug. 

Different from Millipedes

Dylan once told me that the easiest way to see if it's a millipede or centipede is to look at it from the top. If you can see the legs, it's probably a centipede. Kiddle says that millipede legs are connected to the bottom of the body, not the side like centipede so this is probably true. 

Millipedes are usually not meat eaters. They prefer already dead or decaying things and some even eat plants. There are some meat eaters, but not many.  

My Centipede

You can make out the tiny legs by the snail.

Dylan printed me out a bug identification sheet that asked some questions about the bug I caught. It was tiny, and could probably curl up on my thumb nail comfortably. I found it when I moved a flower pot. It was in the dirt. 

It had a lot of legs, but no wings and I didn't see any eyes. It had a lot of separate body parts but probably less than 50. It was hard to count with how much it was moving. The body looked soft because of how bendy it was, but I didn't touch it because I knew they could bite and the poor guy was probably scared enough. 

It was a really light tan color with darker brown lines on the body. I drew a picture but it wasn't good, so I am just going to put the picture I took on my phone when I let him go.

My Sites

https://a-z-animals.com/blog/incredible-centipede-facts/

https://kids.kiddle.co/Centipede