We are currently on a two-week holiday on the island of Saint Martin / Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. It’s a lovely destination: great beaches, good climate, excellent food, friendly people.
Also some … interesting wildlife.
Yesterday afternoon, we heard a blood curdling scream from our daughters’ shared bedroom. We went running; I was the first through the door. They were huddled on the bed, clutching each other in abject terror.
Because, scuttling across the floor, there was an arthropod almost as long as the inside of my forearm.
I grabbed a book and swept the critter back toward the patio door, to prevent it from going under the bed. Then we threw a towel over it to keep it contained (while my daughters fled), opened the door, and threw the towel with the centipede out into the yard.
It’s on record as the largest centipede species in the world. It can grow up to a foot in length (30 cm), and I have to say, it’s truly impressive to see an arthropod of this size. It feels weirdly prehistoric, in a way. Here’s someone else’s picture for reference; ours wasn’t quite this big, but it was close.
What was very interesting (and disconcerting) was its behavior. It wasn’t scared of us. Normally when you mess with a bug, it tries to get away. But this one, when I swept it with the book, it curled up slightly where it stopped, turned back to face me, reared up its head, and bared its … whatever its bitey bits are called.
After we threw it outside (and reassured our kids), I did a little more reading on the critter. Really fascinating, the ecological niche it fills. Here’s a good article:
One sample fact to whet your appetite: The centipede is a carnivorous hunter. It likes to go into caves, climb up and hang dangling from the ceiling by its back legs, and snatch bats out of the air.
I will not be sharing this information with the girls until we have left the island and are safely back in Europe, where the scariest bug is the comparatively sedate giant hornet. But for my part, I feel quite pleased to have had an encounter with this unique multi-legged organism.
. Yours is quite a large ‘pede! 
