Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Scolopen­dra gi­gan­tea in­hab­its trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal forests in north­ern South Amer­ica.

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Since they have no waxy cov­er­ing on their cu­ti­cle, cen­tipedes are lim­ited to liv­ing in humid en­vi­ron­ments, and can usu­ally be found in soil, leaf lit­ter, or rot­ten wood.

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland
• forest
• scrub forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Cen­tipedes are dorsoven­trally flat­tened, and their bod­ies are di­vided into well-marked seg­ments, each of which is flat­tened. Each body seg­ment has a pair of legs, which means that there is al­ways an odd num­ber of leg pairs rang­ing from 21 to 23. Their rear legs are spiny in order to ward off po­ten­tial preda­tors. The legs on the first body seg­ment are mod­i­fied into venom-bear­ing fangs called max­il­lipeds that cen­tipedes use to hunt their food. They have mandibles, which are a mod­i­fied pair of legs that end in a sharp claw into which a poi­son gland opens. The mandibles are used for seiz­ing and killing prey. Cen­tipedes have long, many-jointed an­tenna, sim­ple or no eyes, and a head cov­ered by a flat shield. Their brain is rel­a­tively large and con­nected with a ven­tral chain of gan­glia. Their heart is a cham­bered dor­sal ves­sel. Cen­tipedes breath through open­ings called spir­a­cles, which are lo­cated be­tween the upper and lower chiti­nous shields and just be­hind the legs. They lead into tra­cheal cham­bers that then branch off to sup­ply the var­i­ous parts of the body with oxy­gen. Scolopen­dra gi­gan­tea has spir­a­cles lo­cated at seg­ments 4,6,8,11,13,15,17,19, and 21. Be­cause of these open­ings, cen­tipedes can lose a lot of water quickly and de­hy­dra­tion can occur. A nor­mal lifes­pan for S. gi­gan­tea is about ten years, and this species can grow to be 12 inches long.

• Range mass

  0 to 0 kg

  0.00 to 0.00 lb

Re­pro­duc­tion

The dif­fer­ence of the sexes is hard to de­tect, even in adults. Be­cause the male has no cop­u­la­tory or­gans, he must spin a small silk pad and then de­posit his sperm on it. Then, the fe­male picks up the sperm and lays her eggs.

Be­hav­ior

Be­cause of their mode of breath­ing, Scolopen­dra gi­gan­tea must live in humid en­vi­ron­ments, such as the un­der­side of rocks or in the soil. After her eggs are laid, the fe­male of the species broods them until the hatch­lings can get their own food.

Food Habits

Giant cen­tipedes are vo­ra­cious car­ni­vores that feed on small in­ver­te­brates such as crick­ets, worms, snails and roaches, and can also eat lizards, toads and mice.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Be­cause they feed on many in­sects and other "pests," Scolopen­dra gi­gan­tea are valu­able to gar­den­ers and farm­ers in keep­ing the po­ten­tial pest pop­u­la­tions down. Also, cen­tipedes in gen­eral are be­com­ing pop­u­lar ter­rar­ium pets.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

The poi­son emit­ted by the bite of Scolopen­dra gi­gan­tea is strong enough to se­ri­ously wound a human.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

There is no in­di­ca­tion that this species is in any way en­dan­gered.

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Cather­ine Meshew (au­thor), South­west­ern Uni­ver­sity, Stephanie Fab­ri­tius (ed­i­tor), South­west­ern Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

Ac­cessed April 5, 2000 at http://​www.​fwkc.​com/​encyclopedia/​low/​articles/​c/​c004001246f.​html.

1993. The Co­lum­bia En­cy­clo­pe­dia, Fifth Edi­tion. Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­sity Press.

Griz­imek, B., G. Narita (Gen­eral Ed­i­tor for Eng­lish Edi­tion). 1968. Grz­imek's An­i­mal En­cy­clo­pe­dia. New York, NY: Van Nos­trand Rein­hold Co..

Lewis, J. 1981. The Bi­ol­ogy of Cen­tipedes. New York: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press.

O'Toole, C. 1986. The En­cy­clo­pe­dia of In­sects. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc..

Pes­son, P., R. Free­man (trans­la­tor). 1959. The World of In­sects. New York, NY: Mc­Graw-Hill Book Co, Inc..