Giant Multi-Legged Animals: Deadly Killers in Nature

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Centipedes are among the largest terrestrial invertebrate predators in the terrestrial ecosystems that can be found in a wide array of terrestrial habitats from tropical rainforests, savannah, prairie, dry regions in deserts to Arctic region. They inhabit under stones and deadwood, inside logs, in leaf litter and soil.

Image source Photo credit: Meczko

Centipedes are any of wormlike arthropods of the class Chilopoda of long flattened many-segmented predaceous arthropods. They are elongated metameric animals that have one segment bearing one pair of legs of which the foremost pair is modified into venomous biting organs with which it preys on insects, such as cockroaches. Presently, approximately 3000 out of 8,000 of its species have been described and identified by the scientists. They can range to a length of a few millimeters (as in the species of Lithobiomorphs) and to as long as 30cm (as in the species of Geophilomorphs). The Giant Desert Centipede as shown in the above picture which is found in the southern United State and in northern Mexico can grow up to 8″, though it appears quite attractive and pretty in its external appearance.

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The Amazonian giant centipede, also called Scolopendra gigantean scientifically, is the largest known species of centipede in the world, which can grow to a length of 30cm or more. This centipede feeds on rodents, spiders and bats. The prehistoric Euphoberia (an extinct genus of myriapod, and its length is 4 times the length of modern-day largest species, Scolopendra gigantean) is the largest known species of a centipede, which can grow up to one meter in length.