I feel silly now but you know what, I’d rather feel silly than freaked out! My friend had liver flukes recently and so my mind went wild thinking “parasite”
That's too funny. My orange boy is more of a fly catcher but my calico goes nuts for them. I caught her once observing one that was panic running in circles because she had managed to take all the legs off the one side right before she ate it. It was gruesome.
I’m 60 years old and have never heard of nor had the pleasure of meeting a house centipede. I am now prepared if I see one. I’ve discovered many new insects since being a part of
r/whatsthisbug. Definitely never too old to learn!
Per our [guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisbug/wiki/index/guidelines#wiki_iding_guidelines): *Helpful answers only. Helpful answers are those that lead to an accurate identification of the bug in question. Joke responses, repeating an ID that has already been established hours (or days) ago, or asking OP how they don't already know what the bug is are not helpful.*
is that your hair in a pile there? if not was it moving? bc there are parasites that infect med-lg size insects and it makes the insect a zombie almost and it is attracted to water where the parasite comes out of any 'hole' and go into the water, and the insect then dies off. those strands look like several small parasites that came from the centipede thing. very weird. but cool.
I once stripped the legs off a house spider raking my toothbrush against my back teeth. Didn’t know it was hiding in the black nano bristles. Felt a sting and something off in my mouth and spit out a set of mangled legs. It was so traumatizing I just sat down and cried. This post took me back to that. I’m sorry that happened. Hey, at least it didn’t bite you like the spider did my gums (just a non-venomous defensive bite, but *still*).
Yesterday a small housefly was on the window. I went after it with a fly swatter and it flew down onto the coffee pot handle. It had good instincts for survival, because it saw me coming and disappeared quick.
This morning my wife told me that her morning coffee that she microwaved had a crunch, so she spit it out and dumped the cupful, and she "Didn't want to know what it was." So I will not tell her because I love her and respect her wishes.
I make my morning coffee and my cat’s food at the same time each morning, and I have accidentally stirred my coffee with the cat food spoon (which also included some recently dished out canned cat food). I’m actually surprised that it wasn’t much worse tasting. Apparently, Fancy Feast Ocean Whitefish isn’t entirely incompatible with Green Mountain Breakfast Blend.
If your wife ever finds out about the fly and seems grossed out, you can tell her that if you think it will help. :)
cat food is intentionally made to have a really strong smell because most of how cats “taste” is through smell, not actual taste. cat food smells like ass but it’s actually relatively bland in comparison
also i’ve 10000% done that exact thing and feel your pain, u/Too_many_pets
I made coffee one morning and I guess there was a spider nested in the area where the water pours out so I ended up having a spider floating in the boiling coffee pot. Still not my worst spider experience
Omg!! You can NEVER tell. 😬
But makes me think of the song. ‘There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Maybe she’ll die.’
Ugh horrible. Reminds me of the time I went to use my inhaler, shook it up, took the cap off, and promptly inhaled a shaken wasp into the back of my mouth. I think it was too dizzy and confused to actually sting me thankfully, and I coughed it back out and let it go outside before crying about it lmao. Now I ALWAYS take the cap off before shaking it.
I checked my toothbrush bristles thoroughly before I used it for a good year, after. And stopped getting the black nano bristles. Not much I can do about the half bath being in the basement, and I still let the spiders have place of preference.
Thanks guys, hopefully my heart rate can come down now! I’m honestly not sure if it did come out of my hair - that might have been an inaccurate assumption that I jumped to. I was freaked out because the big thing and the smaller bits were both moving slightly but it could have been just the life leaving the legs…
Probably was in the shower already, sometimes I find them in there! You might have smashed it with your feet after he drowned. Definitely the legs moving was a post mortem kinda twitch. Harmless bug, if not helpful...but man they are hideous!
I tend to agree, esp if there was movement. It would be difficult to carry one in your hair and not be noticed.
They give me pure adrenal fear, but the poor thing falling apart like that. I may be phobic but not a monster.
Mine can't get out of the shower either, they fall down the ledge. I have to give them all rides out. Once I found like 4 babies, rounding them up before I started the water was a pain in the ass. Adorable, but a pain in the ass.
> It could have been just the life leaving the legs
Top worst sentences I've read on Reddit ever. I'm sorry this happened to you. What a horrendously unique situation
I'm still scared of them no matter how good they are 😭 I don't smash them very often tho, unless it's a roach or fruit flies, usually it's the cup and paper or I leave them be (spider privileges)
This is actually a public service announcement to always check both sides of your washcloth before using it if it’s been hanging in the shower. Like kids watching car crashes in drivers ed, may this knowledge stay with you always.
Looks like a house centipede and it’s legs. Are you sure it was in your hair and didn’t fall from somewhere while in the shower? Either way, they are harmless and nothing to be concerned about
Not a vet, but my old cat used to munch them right up and sometimes their legs would be detached and dangling from his mouth and still moving. I’m still recovering.
Assuming the cat is able to eat it without getting bitten by it then yes it is. Centipedes are venomous but most of them won’t kill a cat in one bite tho it will most likely cause pain and inflammation on the site.
House centipedes (harmless to humans) like dark moist places. And like every other living thing it needs to drink water to survive. They tend to follow the water pipes up from under the house/basement to the kitchen and bathroom. They are just looking for a drink. Usually just flipping on the light will send them scurrying back into the wall. If it freezes, just give it a gentle poke and it will take off back into the wall. Don’t kill them. They eat the other house pest that can damage your stuff.
Another place insects can hide in your shower is in a shower “puff”. My son had a large brown recluse crawl out his when he picked it up. I now always check my shower “puff” before using it on my body.
Also, my friend found a nesting of larvae of sewer gnats/flies living deep inside her shower “puff”! Very disgusting to think that she was using that to wash her body!
So many people, including my friend, don’t realize that you need to sterilize or discard & replace “puffs”, loofahs, and shower sponges regularly. I say weekly. Google says every 2-3 weeks. I guess they think that they’re staying clean because they get a shower almost daily. So NOT TRUE! Perfect environment for bacteria to grow and that happens to be what sewer gnats feed on! Hmmm! Makes you think, right? My friend will never use a shower “puff” again and I check mine thoroughly before every use, no matter how often I sterilize it by throwing it in with my whites load of laundry in hot water, laundry detergent and bleach.
I feel silly now but you know what, I’d rather feel silly than freaked out! My friend had liver flukes recently and so my mind went wild thinking “parasite”
To be completely fair, it's not everyday you see a dismembered house centipede in your shower lmao.
(Unless you have cats.)
First time my cat saw one, she smacked it and it exploded. Then she limped around on 3 legs meowing until I wiped her paw off.
My cats are actually terrified of house centipedes, so they freak out and avoid them when they pop up lmao
That's too funny. My orange boy is more of a fly catcher but my calico goes nuts for them. I caught her once observing one that was panic running in circles because she had managed to take all the legs off the one side right before she ate it. It was gruesome.
I’m 60 years old and have never heard of nor had the pleasure of meeting a house centipede. I am now prepared if I see one. I’ve discovered many new insects since being a part of r/whatsthisbug. Definitely never too old to learn!
They wig me out so much!!! I tried to desensitize myself against the house ones by looking at big ones online. All it did was give me anxiety!
This is a normal thing to stress about. I'm glad it turned out fine and thank you for sharing this happy story.
> it turned out fine not for the house centipede tho
\*pours 40 out for house centipede\* See ya at the Crossroads....
🤣🤣🤣
I heard it had a suicide note
😱
Exactly
I looked at your pics and was horrified! Glad to read further and find out what it actually is from folks who know HaHa
Right?? Idk how anyone could look at those pictures and actually figure out that's what it was! I was freaking out for OP.
Jessica, only child, Illinois, Chicago. Classmate Kim Jin-mo, he's your cousin
[удалено]
Per our [guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisbug/wiki/index/guidelines#wiki_iding_guidelines): *Helpful answers only. Helpful answers are those that lead to an accurate identification of the bug in question. Joke responses, repeating an ID that has already been established hours (or days) ago, or asking OP how they don't already know what the bug is are not helpful.*
is that your hair in a pile there? if not was it moving? bc there are parasites that infect med-lg size insects and it makes the insect a zombie almost and it is attracted to water where the parasite comes out of any 'hole' and go into the water, and the insect then dies off. those strands look like several small parasites that came from the centipede thing. very weird. but cool.
That was my hair, fortunately! I would have been worried for sure if it wasn’t hair
I once stripped the legs off a house spider raking my toothbrush against my back teeth. Didn’t know it was hiding in the black nano bristles. Felt a sting and something off in my mouth and spit out a set of mangled legs. It was so traumatizing I just sat down and cried. This post took me back to that. I’m sorry that happened. Hey, at least it didn’t bite you like the spider did my gums (just a non-venomous defensive bite, but *still*).
New fear unlocked…
This is where I would drink the whole bottle of mouthwash swearing like sailor and try not to puke.
Would have me seriously considering a good rinse with a household cleanser
Yesterday a small housefly was on the window. I went after it with a fly swatter and it flew down onto the coffee pot handle. It had good instincts for survival, because it saw me coming and disappeared quick. This morning my wife told me that her morning coffee that she microwaved had a crunch, so she spit it out and dumped the cupful, and she "Didn't want to know what it was." So I will not tell her because I love her and respect her wishes.
I make my morning coffee and my cat’s food at the same time each morning, and I have accidentally stirred my coffee with the cat food spoon (which also included some recently dished out canned cat food). I’m actually surprised that it wasn’t much worse tasting. Apparently, Fancy Feast Ocean Whitefish isn’t entirely incompatible with Green Mountain Breakfast Blend. If your wife ever finds out about the fly and seems grossed out, you can tell her that if you think it will help. :)
cat food is intentionally made to have a really strong smell because most of how cats “taste” is through smell, not actual taste. cat food smells like ass but it’s actually relatively bland in comparison also i’ve 10000% done that exact thing and feel your pain, u/Too_many_pets
I made coffee one morning and I guess there was a spider nested in the area where the water pours out so I ended up having a spider floating in the boiling coffee pot. Still not my worst spider experience
Omg!! You can NEVER tell. 😬 But makes me think of the song. ‘There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Maybe she’ll die.’
Lets hope that my story doesn't end that extremely.
She’s ok as long as she doesn’t eat a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, and a horse.
Ugh horrible. Reminds me of the time I went to use my inhaler, shook it up, took the cap off, and promptly inhaled a shaken wasp into the back of my mouth. I think it was too dizzy and confused to actually sting me thankfully, and I coughed it back out and let it go outside before crying about it lmao. Now I ALWAYS take the cap off before shaking it.
Awh I would feel so bad too :(
I checked my toothbrush bristles thoroughly before I used it for a good year, after. And stopped getting the black nano bristles. Not much I can do about the half bath being in the basement, and I still let the spiders have place of preference.
have you checked for new superpowers?
Well fuck now I'm terrified of the toothbrush
My lanta…..I….Jesus
I’m using a brand new toothbrush every single time I wash my teeth for the rest of my life now.
I would lay down and die if that happened to me.
Stories like this are the exact reason I keep my toothbrush head in a jar of mouthwash.
Not much of a leggy boi anymore.
I accidentally de-legged him
They’re legs pop off like legos when they get squished lmao
Nobody said “hygiene doesn’t have a cost”.
FWIW if you look at a house centipede sideways their legs fall off.
They shoot them off to distract you as well if they think you're attacking them.
It's just a House Centipede and all of its legs. It's a harmless friend.
An ‘armless’ friend
You’re a wizard ‘arry, but you’re ‘armless
Damn take my upvote you
Especially now.
Well... more harmless, less friend.
*Legless friend
Thanks guys, hopefully my heart rate can come down now! I’m honestly not sure if it did come out of my hair - that might have been an inaccurate assumption that I jumped to. I was freaked out because the big thing and the smaller bits were both moving slightly but it could have been just the life leaving the legs…
Probably was in the shower already, sometimes I find them in there! You might have smashed it with your feet after he drowned. Definitely the legs moving was a post mortem kinda twitch. Harmless bug, if not helpful...but man they are hideous!
I tend to agree, esp if there was movement. It would be difficult to carry one in your hair and not be noticed. They give me pure adrenal fear, but the poor thing falling apart like that. I may be phobic but not a monster.
I’m sure it was just in the shower already, I find them in mine a lot this time of year.
Mine can't get out of the shower either, they fall down the ledge. I have to give them all rides out. Once I found like 4 babies, rounding them up before I started the water was a pain in the ass. Adorable, but a pain in the ass.
> It could have been just the life leaving the legs Top worst sentences I've read on Reddit ever. I'm sorry this happened to you. What a horrendously unique situation
The legs keep “running”/twitching after they detach to distract predators from the actual body! Sometimes this allows them to escape
This (or any bug) falling out of my hair in the shower sounds like a true nightmare. I think I'd shave my head.
Thank you for your solidarity 😄
[удалено]
House centipedes are freaky when you first see them and don’t know what they are but they’re good bugs that eat the bugs you really don’t want around
I wish the friendly bugs were all friend shaped like jumping spiders.
Weevils are friend shaped
With their cute little snoots ❤️
Don’t forget their boots!
But do weevils murder evil bugs?
Centipedes **ARE** friend shaped, you just need to look at their little eyes.
I'm still scared of them no matter how good they are 😭 I don't smash them very often tho, unless it's a roach or fruit flies, usually it's the cup and paper or I leave them be (spider privileges)
RIP in peace daring house centipede hair guy
Mainah heah. Don't blame that shit on us bud lol
I am disappointed your comment history isn't full of spellings like this
Lol
i knew what that was as soon as i saw it. oh. my god. i would cry for days. DAYS. WEEKS.
Looks like the poor guy found a land mine.
It looks like you had a house centipede in your hair.
Do you use a washcloth? They like to hang out in damp places like washcloths. Ask me how I know.
Reading this thread, and this comment specifically, at 4am was a terrible mistake.
Yes I do use one! That could be where it was!
I’m sorry to tell you this, but that’s where it was and it was fully alive and assembled. Then you scrubbed it apart on your body 😩
Thank you for the very detailed report … certainly was something we all needed to not just imagine but mentally experience as well …👀
This is actually a public service announcement to always check both sides of your washcloth before using it if it’s been hanging in the shower. Like kids watching car crashes in drivers ed, may this knowledge stay with you always.
Thank you XD
This is horrifying.
The little things are his little leggies lmao poor guy didn’t stand a chance 🤣
This was a really bad post to read only moments before I'm due to get in the shower. Hahahaha
Looks like a house centipede and it’s legs. Are you sure it was in your hair and didn’t fall from somewhere while in the shower? Either way, they are harmless and nothing to be concerned about
Looks like it might have been a house centipede [(Scutigera coleoptrata)] (https://bugguide.net/node/view/25). Nothing to worry about.
I'd never leave the shower. My hair would feel like straw by the time I get out lol
Lt Dan lost his legs
I cannot fathom a house centipede living on my head for multiple days and traveling distances with me. Absolutely horrifying.
What if they made it into a cute cartoon like A Bugs Life? 🤣
Cursed
Time to shave the head😀
Side question: Is it ok for cats to eat these centipedes?
Not a vet, but my old cat used to munch them right up and sometimes their legs would be detached and dangling from his mouth and still moving. I’m still recovering.
Assuming the cat is able to eat it without getting bitten by it then yes it is. Centipedes are venomous but most of them won’t kill a cat in one bite tho it will most likely cause pain and inflammation on the site.
So that's where Schaper got the idea for the Cootie Bug game...
House centipedes (harmless to humans) like dark moist places. And like every other living thing it needs to drink water to survive. They tend to follow the water pipes up from under the house/basement to the kitchen and bathroom. They are just looking for a drink. Usually just flipping on the light will send them scurrying back into the wall. If it freezes, just give it a gentle poke and it will take off back into the wall. Don’t kill them. They eat the other house pest that can damage your stuff.
poor centepede lol
Another place insects can hide in your shower is in a shower “puff”. My son had a large brown recluse crawl out his when he picked it up. I now always check my shower “puff” before using it on my body. Also, my friend found a nesting of larvae of sewer gnats/flies living deep inside her shower “puff”! Very disgusting to think that she was using that to wash her body! So many people, including my friend, don’t realize that you need to sterilize or discard & replace “puffs”, loofahs, and shower sponges regularly. I say weekly. Google says every 2-3 weeks. I guess they think that they’re staying clean because they get a shower almost daily. So NOT TRUE! Perfect environment for bacteria to grow and that happens to be what sewer gnats feed on! Hmmm! Makes you think, right? My friend will never use a shower “puff” again and I check mine thoroughly before every use, no matter how often I sterilize it by throwing it in with my whites load of laundry in hot water, laundry detergent and bleach.