Now, you have more to fear on the beach than just a nip slip or a hairy back. Researchers have just discovered a new kind of giant swimming centipede. And, lucky us, it lives in Southeast Asia.
According to National Geographic, this “horrific, giant, venomous creepy-crawly” is as comfortable walking on land as it is swimming underwater.
Researchers have called the creature Scolopendra cataracta and it is the world’s first amphibious centipede. It belongs to the family of Scolopendra centipedes and can grow as long as 20 centimeters.
Photo: The Sun
All centipedes are venomous and carnivorous and Scolopendra cataracta is no different.
The centipede was first spotted by George Beccaloni from the Natural History Museum in London, who was on his honeymoon in Thailand.
“It was pretty horrific-looking: very big with long legs and a horrible dark, greenish-black color,” he said of the thing he found under a rock.
What shocked him most was that the thing quickly “darted into nearby water, unusual behavior for a centipede,” he said. He watched it swim like an eel with powerful, full-body undulations. When removed from the water, droplets rolled off of the centipede’s green-black back so that it was completely dry as it creeped away.
So far, two specimens have been collected near a waterfall in Laos, one in Thailand, and one in Vietnam.
Beccaloni believes this centipede is very different from its cousins that live and hunt on land, he thinks that it hunts fish or amphibians in the sea.
Experts know that this new, nightmare-inducing centipede can give a stinging, venomous bite. The magazine helpfully points out that, “it probably wouldn’t kill you — it would just cause agonizing pain.” Thanks for that.
Bites from similar, land-dwelling centipedes of the same size cause burning pain that spreads to the entire length of an arm or leg if a finger or toe is bit. The pain may last a few days but the bitten should fully recover.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t bite you anywhere too sensitive.
Reader Interactions