House centipedes (Scutigera) are common arthropods with long, flattened, segmented bodies with one pair of legs per segment. The house centipede is up to 1 1/2 inches long and has 15 pairs of very long, almost thread-like, slender legs. Each leg is encircled by dark and white bands. The body is brown to grayish-yellow and has three dark stripes on top.
Though house centipedes are found both indoors and outdoors it is the occasional one on the bathroom or bedroom wall, or the one accidentally trapped in the bathtub, sink, or lavatory that causes the most concern. However, these locations are not where they normally originate. Centipedes prefer to live in damp portions of basements, closets, bathrooms, unexcavated areas under the house and beneath the bark of firewood stored indoors. They do not come up through the drain pipes.
House centipede control consists of drying up and cleaning, as much as possible, the areas that serve as habitat and food source for centipedes. Residual insecticides can be applied to usual hiding places such as crawl spaces, dark corners in basements, baseboard cracks and crevices, openings in concrete slabs, under shelves, around stored boxes, and so forth.
The house centipede is often seen darting across floors at high speed, occasionally stopping suddenly and remaining motionless for some time before racing off once more. Its cylindrical body can grow to an inch or more in length. It is yellowish brown and bears three dark longitudinal stripes dorsally. The 15 pairs of slender, banded legs increase in length from the front to the back of the body. The last pair is much longer than the others. The legs give the animal the appearance of great size. Unlike most other centipedes, house centipedes and their close relatives have well-developed, faceted eyes.
S. coleoptrata is probably indigenous in the Mediterranean region, but it has spread through much of Europe, Asia, and North America. In the United States, it has spread from the southern states and Mexico. It reached Pennsylvania in 1849, New York in 1885, and Massachusetts about 1890, and it is now extends westward to the Rocky Mountains and beyond (Lewis 1981).
In captivity, house centipedes feed readily on cockroach nymphs, flies, moths, bedbugs, crickets, silverfish, earwigs, and other insects and small spiders. They capture prey by half pouncing and half lassoing them. They can capture several prey items at one time. They feed on one specimen while holding the others with their quivering, lashing appendages.
Eggs are laid in spring and early summer. In laboratory rearings, 24 females produced an average of 63 eggs each and a maximum of 151 eggs. Larvae hatch with four pairs of legs. There are five more larval instars with 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 pairs of legs
Although house centipedes are not aggressive, and their jaws are not powerful enough to break human skin easily, they will sometimes bite in self-defense. Severe swelling and pain can result from the venom injected, but in most cases the bite is no worse than the sting of a bee.
