I had a few of those mega-centis in my house when I lived out in the Japanese countryside.
The are called Gejigeji in Japan
Although they look like they would eat your granny, they are harmless.
They eat roaches and other nasties, so they are actually quite nice chaps.
And of course, Mukade means centipede in Japanese so I’m probably related.
Mukade
I don’t think that’s a sidewalk but rather out on the patio as the description states (sidewalks are usually rougher and don’t use grout in between the tiles). I think what’s being mistaken for a much larger post or table leg is simply a chair leg due to it’s angle (it’s not straight up-and-down). I don’t think it’s nearly as big as it looks in the video, it’s just zoomed up.
With all this bug squeemishness going on, I couldn’t help but think of the “Get them off me!” man from Hellraiser II (Warning: possibly disturbing content):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HH6sOmg875g
djm
I can’t begin to tell you how much I am enjoying this thread! I was in Entomology 15 yrs ago and really miss it. We had some real puzzles to solve there and saw so many strange and interesting critters.
Tracking down that suspicious looking video–
you can get to it from Wiki if you go to the page for the particular species–
The video is listed at the very end of the page
External links
- Research on the Asp Caterpillar at Baylor College of Medicine
- Info page with photos
- BugGuide account
Video of this bug
If it’s in Wikipedia it must be correct, right? 
Where is Rod Sprague when we need him? 
Too cool!
Are there stories / legends associated with your namesake?
Cynth, I find those nasty looking centipede thingys in my house ALL of the time. I don’t care if they’re harmless and eat other icky things in my house, I don’t like them. I would have done exactly what you did…oh wait, maybe I wouldn’t have. I would have woken Mr Izz up and made him do it 
Or one of the older boys…afterall, that’s what boys are for.
Izzy!! 
I think you deserve a medal of bravery for showing up on this thread 
Here is a very pretty bug for you. It’s an orchid mantis.
I stepped on one yellowjacket as an adult and I will never forget it. It really hurt and my toe became extremely swollen. Those stings are extremely nasty. I’m certainly very watchful when I’m around them. I hate to even think of a three year old having a bad experience with them—that would traumatize anyone. 
When I lived in Santa Cruz, CA we had what we called banana slugs which sound like yours except they were yellow. They were actually the mascot (maybe it was unofficial–not sure) of the UC campus there. I didn’t mind them, and actually as students we were quite fond of them----they were not terribly common and they were so bright—but then I never had the misfortune to step on one----YUK!!! would be an understatement I think!
I’ve read that beer is not very effective with earwigs. They recommend putting vegetable oil and soy sauce in tuna cans and sinking them down so the tops of the cans are level with the soil. A woman on a gardening forum compared this with using beer and she caught 40 times more earwigs with the oil-soy sauce mixture! I tried it and the problem was that it rained and splashed the oil onto the plant leaves and those leaves died—leaves which the plant could hardly spare. I had the trap close to a plant because that’s what the earwigs were destroying. One could probably find a solution to the problem. I did catch a bunch of earwigs though. The other thing is that a teaspoon of dish detergent in a quart of water will kill earwigs in about 30 seconds if they are directly sprayed with the mixture. I went out one night with my spray bottle and flashlight but it is hard to hold the flashlight, lift up leaves to find earwigs, get the spray bottle to work when it is tipped and to keep spraying for so long—my hand got too tired. I did kill some earwigs but they run really fast and the spray bottle always took a fews squeezes to really get going—it was really nervewracking. You’d need a couple of people or a headflashlight at the very least. I’ve thought of putting the soap in a hose sprayer and then flushing them out of cracks with soap solution during the day since they come out if I hose off the patio.
Well, I certainly think the word “Gejigeji” sounds much more pleasant than centipede. Now if you could only do something about how they look! That certainly is a lovely self-portrait! .
I got a few seconds into this and was overtaken by the creeps. I never got to the scary part. Maybe I’ll try again in the morning .
Well, I did holler really loud hoping that my husband would provide some reinforcements, but once he’s asleep he is hard to get excited and then with the fans going I think he couldn’t hear me. If there had been a bat in the shower, I would have been jumping on him until he woke up and he would have had to deal with it or me in my bat-fear state. So far he has always chosen to deal with the bat . I guess we are supposed to learn to love these centipedes. Since you encounter them a lot maybe that will give you more opportunities to practice. (Just trying to look on the bright side. )
See, now I would rather be able to see what is bug and what is not bug right away. I can see that this bug is amazing and I wouldn’t want to hurt it. But I would be seriously discombobulated if I were touching that orchid and that bug suddenly jumped off. If the bug were green or brown, then I would know to keep my distance. Well, we don’t have orchids here so I guess I shouldn’t borrow trouble, eh?
I hate the kind that get into your food and ruin your clothes. Pretty moths are ok.
The two centipedes pictured are related, both being in the family Scutigeridae. Scutigeridae are noted for having rigid bodies letting them run faster and well developed eyes. They are noted for being the family of centipedes with the speed and eyesight to hunt swift arthropods such as flys. I will be checking out the caterpillar video soon and weigh in with my opinion.
That is what I was thinking your reason must be. We have a terrible time with moths getting into things here—I keep telling my husband we have to store our food carefully but he doesn’t always completely seal the containers I got, grrrr! It is so hard to get rid of them once you get them—you have to go through everything. We definitely kill those moths on sight.
Boy, I thought that centipede ran fast, but I’m not sure I could stand seeing one run fast enough to catch a fly . I am working on my attitude though. I would really appreciate it if you did take a look at that video when you can. I was just about to post a question to BugGuide about it, but I’ll wait to see what you think.
I am totally paranoid about clothes moths. I’m a handspinner, so I’m always surrounded by partially finished orders/handspun yarn/knitting/fleece. Clothes moths could have a field day in our house. There is nothing more horrible than finding that my carefully stored fleece has got lodgers of the egg/larvae/moth kind. The whole lot has to be binned! Luckily I’ve got a cat who likes eating little critters!
Cass.
I looked at the caterpillar. The green one in the picture looks like it could be a “photoshopped” example of the one in the movie. The one in the movie is probably about normal 2 inch caterpillar sized, the seam in the floor does look like an ordinary tile grout seam and the leg looks like a common wooden chair leg, at least to me.
It looks wider than it is, being covered by that fine, thick fur. The tufts coming off the sides move like they are meant to imitate legs, as the caterpillar’s legs are safely tucked up under the body. I would guess it is imitating some sort of millipede, as millipedes often have interesting chemical defenses of their own. Some millipedes secrete cyanide compounds, others actually secrete LSD that understandably messes up the nervous system of spiders and other organisms that try to eat them!
The technical name for the hairs on the caterpillar is urticating hairs. The hairs are actually many fine barbed needles weakly connected to each other in chains. They are hollow and contain venom meant more to cause irritation than actually kill the organism trying to eat the caterpillar.
As far as keeping clothe moths and carpet beetles off wool, cedar chests or thymol, the solid oil of thyme in an enclosed space, work well. The quickest ecologically sound way to end an infestation is to stick all the infested material in the freezer.
The more I look into it, I don’t think the species of that caterpillar was correctly stated. According to the author of the Youtube video, it was taken in Bolivia and he/she is a missionary there. The locals call it “burro burro”. I think Bolivia is outside the range of the species that it was thought to have been. Still, I could not identify the species.
The freezer trick is a good one, but I don’t think I could fit about 40 various sheep/Alpaca fleece in our freezer. (Think my husband would have something to say!!!) 
…No ..it’s not that bad really, I only lose about two or three fleece a year to a really bad infestation! I’m careful about packing them up when I’m storing them.
Those Banana slugs…OOooooooer. Seriously yucky critters. The orange ones round here lately, are really REALLY fat. At least if I find snails on my veg in the garden, there’s something there that I can get hold of to fling them away (over next-door’s fence…he-he!!) 
You pick up a slug to fling it away, and it’s superglued it’s self to your fingers!..Glad I’ve had my tea!
Cass.
Thanks-- I wanted to hear your vote!
The technical name for the hairs on the caterpillar is > urticating hairs> .
Because they 'urt.
That is really interesting, Rod. Especially the part about the tufts imitating legs and the actual legs being tucked up—because that is one thing that looked so unreal to me—although then how is the caterpillar moving—I guess they could be tucked up and still be moving but the predator would just see the imitation legs. Anyway, I know you’ve seen lots of caterpillars and I’ve seen very few so your opinion will set my mind to rest and I accept that it is a real caterpillar. Thanks for looking into this—it was truly driving me crazy .
