In south-central Oklahoma, late afternoon and kind of hot outside when found in middle of road yesterday. Appearance from overhead is kind of millipede-ish, but fewer legs and body segments Rather fast in its crawling and movements and moves in straight line. Has set of pincers on one end that it uses with a ‘strike’ motion - rears up then snaps 'em at whatever it is aiming at. It is about 2 to 2.5 inches approximately.
Weirdly, where it ‘strikes’ at something and lands a blow, it leaves an oily-looking blackish ‘wetness’ that has a scent(?) that made my Chihuahua pull back as far as leash allowed. Maybe a blistering agent or such?? Offensive to dogs, to say the least, and dog wanted to get away badly! You can see the goo it left on stick in pic 1 (with the arrows). I had to use a stick to hold it still for pictures and every time I got it close (gently, for what its worth) it struck at it a couple times then tried running away. Energetic little critter, for sure. Many thanks…
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
With 6 legs and segmented body it’s definitely an insect. My guess is that it’s the larval form of some other big bug. That’s all I got!
Rove Beetle larvae at a semi-educated guess. They’re active predators just like the adults. At a further guess possibly in the genus Ocypus.
I just realized I probably mislabeled location of pincers - they are at tail end and not head end. Oops - busy day yesterday :smack: Sorry.
If it makes any difference, it was in front of a property that had an abandoned house demolished about two years ago and all the ‘debris’ lay piled all this time. The grass is chest high with other typical trash things there also (old recliners, TV or two, etc) I saw a pygmy rattlesnake there last summer and racoon, armadillo, and opossum are in this area as well. A nasty place not quite on edge of town.
The day of tornadoes here in Okie-land, there was a large heavy-equipment excavation-type ‘bucket-loader’ tearing out old house’s foundation and all the other crap piled there so its likely its habitat was destroyed. I really don’t wanna know EVERYTHING that got evicted from there, but this one is a bit different than the usual insects I see. I’m in my gardens a lot, and never seen this type ever.
They’re probably not really “pincers” from the looks of things, but rather glands used to expel a noxious substance. This “strike-over-the-back” like a scorpion is characteristic of rove beetles generally, including members of Ocypus like the impressive Devils Coach Horse ( which has been introduced throughout the Americas, they’re reasonably common in my area ).
ETA: Wiki on Devil’s Coach Horse.
The devil’s coach horse larva looks like this
and that looks like your mystery insect, or a close relative of same.
Many, many thanks. I do believe this is now asked and answered. And quickly 
It did strike similar to scorpion, fwiw.
A great day to all!
