Now that you’ve read this thread and viewed the linked pictures, check out ‘I had a dream’ by Friedo. 
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I am sitting at my desk at work with tears in my eyes and a horrified expression on my face.
I…I…I can’t even comprehend the horror in those photos. Even the millipede - big fat nasty thing that it is.
All those spiny legs moving at me - that giant crunchy shell which makes such a godawful sound when stepped on and the knowledge that I can’t even smash the whole thing if I stepped on it - there would be other parts moving, threatening to still crawl…
I so have tears in my eyes - I’m going to curl up in a corner now - thankyouverymuch.
I’m pretty tolerant of the creepy crawlies too, but find centipedes to be horrifying. Millipedes, OTOH, are cute and snuggly.
I’m glad we just get scorpions and potato bugs here.
I told myself to click on that. “Sausage Creature,” I said, “you know that’ll be nothing but trouble if you open that!”
So I did it anyway. :smack:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Then my husband came in wondering what I was squealing about, saw it, then decided to make little creepy crawlies up my arm. I will not be caught without my flyswatter today.
Although I think that thing needs at 12 gauge.
Further proof that if God exists, He hates us, very, very much.
Not, NOT to click on that. Sheesh. That picture threw me all off my proofreading.
For some reason, the centipede in the link didn’t bother me. Maybe because we don’t have them here. Or maybe, once you’ve seen an 18" giant slug in your yard, nothing else can compare. I’ll take dry, crunchy centipedes over slimy, squishy slugs any day.
Stepping on a slug is not my idea of a good time, and I have done it more than once. I don’t run screaming in fear from a slug. I do run screaming in fear from a centipede. I have tried to kill them with a broom, a cement block, and oven spray. They laugh at conventional bug killer. My husband’s method for disposing of them was to get them into a glass jar and put on the lid. I wasn’t going to get close enough to them to put them in a jar. I want a long-range weapon.
I absolutely can not stand centipedes. they give the heebie jeebies. They’ve featured prominently in nightmares.
WHen I lived in Hawai’i as a teenager I’d ride my bike on the empty side of the subdivision, and there were big orange ones and they’d be out on the road sort of sitting around in large numbers and I’d have to ride over them with this. . . crunching sound. I’d lift my feet way up and just coast and grimace until I was past it.
Shall I tell you about the little scorpions on Kona-side?
Coulda been worse. Coulda been measured in feet.
No, slugs aren’t scary. Even big ones. They aren’t venomous and can’t move bloody fast.
I found a demon bug in a basin in my parents’ laundry room once. I poured fabric softener on it, and then put a brick on it. I still wasn’t sure it would die. Mr. Lissar cuts them in half and then stomps them. I like to use shoes or bricks or anything else that doesn’t require me to get close.
“Eyebrows”! Hah!
capybara, that’s horrifying.
As a native Seattleite, slugs are the ultimate in grossness, but a salt shaker is the only defense weapon needed. Large, crunchy insects freak me out and require other people to save me from them. (Loud screaming gets everyone in the household to me quickly, armed with shoes to swat the miserable things! My family knows me!)
However, keeping a hammer with me is a terrific idea for dealing with the gigantic house spiders which break into my house and only show themselves right before I go to bed, when everyone else is asleep!
One of my most fun book purchases is The at-A-Bug Cookbook by David George Gordon (he has a website devoted to this stuff). On pp. 86=87 he gives a recipe for a kinda teriyaki Centipede. It’s called “Ample rumstcks”. Among the tidbits of knowledge he imparts:
“Note: Before cooking and serving any centipede, snip off the toxignaths or “poison jaws” on the animal’s head. These paired appendages can be detrrents t any plucky person who nibbles on this part of the centipede’s anatomy…A cemtipede’s genital openings are located on the second to the lastbody segment. If you think anyone will be hip to this anatomical oddity, you may want to remove this part as we…”
“Millipedes (class Diplopoda) should never be sbstituted for centipedes in a dish. These animals secrete a foul-smelling fluid that, in some species, may contain traces of hydrogen cyanide. Not good, unless you’re from the Borgia clan.”
There’s a lovely full color picture of he cooked cetipede, arrayed with vegetables on a plate.
Yum!
Thank you, Hal. I really needed to spend the rest of the evening fearing an attack by the Monster Centipede from Hell[sup]TM[/sup]. My day is now complete.
The only centipedes that we get around here are maybe an inch long, but they have long legs and are really gross. I typically use a tissue box to pound the beast into oblivion, and then I grab a tissue and flush the remains down the toilet.
Oh gag retch!!!
We’ve got giant millipedes at work and I handle 'em all the time. They feel sort of like starfish suckers, kind of a suction effect more than a claw thing. I think they’re kind of cute.
We used to have a BIG (8"-10") centipede, Vietnamese, I think. That thing would try to dive out of the tank. I had to throw in it’s cricket dinners and slap the lid back down fast!. From what I was told, it was quite venomous. Can’t say I was sorry to eventully find it curled up and limp!
Madagascgar Hissing Cockroaches rock! We’ve got a colony at work and I’ve had several for pets. Great for freaking out your kid’s friends! 
Some centipedes also excrete a fluid with HCN. If you put one in a sealed jar, it’ll poison itself. They’ve also been known to commit suicide by biting themselves to death in captivity. Nasty, nasty creatures, are centipedes.
Lived on the Big Island, and we had them. I got nailed 3 times in my year and a half. Burns like a mudda. The ones we had we’re 3-4 inches and could move very fast. I hated them cause they’d come in the night and get right into bed with you.
Even the geckos wouldn’t touch them.
Y’know, none of the tourist information I’ve read about Hawai’i ever mentioned these centipedes.
At least they don’t have tentacles.
Never mind the centipedes, tell me about the chicken problem!
O.M.G. - I slept on the floor in Kauai because the bed in our condo was too soft.
That was 2 years ago, and now I feel like taking a nice Clorox shower.