Posted on 08/31/2005 10:04:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
LONDON (AP) -- Aaron Balick expected to find a tiny mouse rustling behind the TV in his apartment. Instead, he found a venomous giant centipede that somehow hitched a ride from South America to Britain.
"Thinking it was a mouse, I went to investigate the sound. The sound was coming from under some papers which I lifted, expecting to see the mouse scamper away," the 32-year-old psychotherapist said Wednesday. "Instead, when I lifted the papers, I saw this prehistoric looking animal skitter away behind a stack of books."
He trapped the 9-inch-long creature between a stack of books and put it in a plastic container.
The next day he took it to Britain's Natural History Museum, which identified the insect as a Scolopendra gigantea - the world's biggest species of centipede.
Stuart Hine, an entomologist at the museum, said it was likely the centipede hitched a ride aboard a freighter, likely with a shipment of fruit.
"Dealing with over 4,000 public and commercial inquiries every year, we have come to expect the unexpected. However, when Aaron produced this beast from his bag I was staggered," Hine said. "Not even I expected to be presented with this."
The Scolopendra gigantea has front claws that are adapted to deliver venom when it stings, which can lead to a blistering rash, nausea and fever. The sting is rarely life-threatening, but painful.
Raid would probably only make it grow 9 extra inches in 3 seconds.
Isn't globalisation wonderful?
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Maybe it's Franz Kafka.
There is at least one documented case of a child dying after being bit by one of these. They normally hunt for frogs and salamanders or even young birds. There are stories about the pain form the bite being so bad that people have poured boiling water on the puncture marks to relieve it. In Africa they are eaten in traditional cusine. (Now why doesn't that surprise me?)
A few of those down the pants and the location of the WMDs would start materializing real fast!
Ditto....
Had a buddy get one of these down the back of his pants in Viet Nam, crawled out of the sandbags he was leaning against. He felt something and swatted his butt. Centipede proceded to start biting. Buddy said it felt like a hot nail was stabbed into him with each bite.
He was given lots of antivenom stuff of some sort, but he still spent much of the night puking his guts out.
These things are very nasty.
Bob
It's shagnasty!
I was watching a movie drinking a beer in a tent on St Croix during some down time during an exercise when a small centipede about 6 inches long and 1cm wide(like that) ok maybe 1/3 an inch wide ran off my boot and up my leg.
What a freaky feeling and I did jump around like a little girl until I smacked it off. They prep you by telling you that you will go to the hospital if you get bitten.
The feeling was just so weird, all those little legs grabbing on.
I got a can of insecticide and killed it after a few minutes. I measured it and it was almost exactly a foot long. The segments were about the size of quarters.
Really scary. I now wonder if it was some kind of record size. They grow much smaller here in Florida.
ROFLOL - That's EXACTLY what I thought when I saw it !!!!
I once worked for a food distribution company. As I walked across the warehouse one day, I saw one of the dockworkers dancing on his tip toes much like my wife does when she sees a bug.
I asked what was going on and he told me he had been unloading a box of bananas from a pallet when a tarantula ran down his arm.
Another employee eventually captured the spider and kept him(?) as a pet.
"UK: Briton finds venomous centipede in house"
I thought they were talking about Democrats.
Unlike the rest of the world, the Brits do seem to recall inches, miles, pints, and pounds.
I ain't buyin no friggin hairy nasty 9" centipede no matter what measurement system you can or cannot use.
He's lucky it wasn't a Brazillian Wandering Spider, a/k/a/ Banana Spider. They kill people.
Actually, we had one of those recently. A young woman got bitten while buying bananas.
Funniest post of the year!!
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