What has at least 20 or more pairs of bright yellow legs, a bright red head on a black body, venom fangs, and scares the “you know what” out of people? Yep, it’s a Texas giant redheaded centipede.
Last week, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) posted a photograph taken at Garner State Park on their social media page of a giant redheaded centipede climbing up a broom. The picture turned out to be quite popular, putting the TPWD on the map, so to speak.
Besides the picture going viral, people were horrified, including a number of people living in Texas. One person tweeted the TPWD Twitter account, asking if the broom in the photo was a toy broom.
The centipede, Scolopendra heros is actually not an insect but belongs to a different class of arthropod entirely: Chilopoda. It is a native to Texas but is also found from northern Mexico to New Mexico and Arizona in the west, and Arkansas and Missouri in the east. They usually remain underground during the heat of the day, although they will come out during cloudy weather.
The redheaded centipede averages 6.5 inches in length but has been known to reach eight inches. They have 21 or 23 pairs of legs and are aposematically colored. Aposematism is an anti-predator adaption seen in some species that warns off predators. It could be colors, sounds, odors or even taste. Surprisingly, aposematism is seen frequently in insects.
A bite from this centipede can be quite painful, causing swelling and sometimes an allergic reaction, but generally, the bite is not life-threatening. While humans are not on the menu, this bug likes to munch on invertebrates like insects and arachnids. They have also been known to hunt and kill lizards, toads, rodents and even snakes.
“They use their legs to grasp prey while feeding and their ‘fangs’ (actually an additional pair of highly modified legs) are capable of piercing the skin and injecting a painful toxin,” explained Ben Hutchins from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department at TPW Magazine.
