Centipede ID

[James M]

Ok I know this is going to near impossible to ID as I don't have a picture but I'm just interested to know the possibilities. Anyway it was a large centipede in the living room on Thursday, it was similar looking to those fast orange ones I often see in the garden lithobius forficatus I think, but black and larger probably about 5/6cm long and it was quite slow moving (faster than a milipede though).

[Pudding4brains]

Hi James,

Did you try to catch/touch it? And was it still "slow" when you did? Are you very sure it was a centipede (15 or 21 pairs of legs), or did it maybe only have 6 legs (3 pairs)? And how sure are you about the 5-6cm - that's proper huge for any European arthropod - can't think of a Lithobius-like centipede that would make it (let alone black) - but then again I'm not very savvy on centipedes. I'm still thinking maybe more along the lines of a beetle larva though, there are one or two that might fit the bill ... (or an escaped "pet" tropical centipede??).

Just my 2ct
Arp

[James M]

Originally Posted by Pudding4brains

Hi James,

Did you try to catch/touch it? And was it still "slow" when you did? Are you very sure it was a centipede (15 or 21 pairs of legs), or did it maybe only have 6 legs (3 pairs)? And how sure are you about the 5-6cm - that's proper huge for any European arthropod - can't think of a Lithobius-like centipede that would make it (let alone black) - but then again I'm not very savvy on centipedes. I'm still thinking maybe more along the lines of a beetle larva though, there are one or two that might fit the bill ... (or an escaped "pet" tropical centipede??).

Just my 2ct
Arp

It was definately a centipede and it was still slow when I touched it. Admittedly 5/6cm was only an estimate as I didn't have a tape measure or anything to hand but it was the biggest centipede I have ever seen.