#Thereuonema tuberculata

[crevicedwelling]

what creature is The Most Bug

easy. these

[fungi-maestro]

Found a moving feather today 🪶 🦗

[geosesarma]

A big game hunter with their prize, Thereuonema tuberculata and a plump Forficula earwig

[crevicedwelling]

Thereuonema tuberculata, not Scutigera coleoptrata! the Asian version of the more widespread house centipede that was only detected in the US recently but likely has been here as long as its more indoors relative of Mediterranean origin has. field marks: general darker color, shorter appendages, more likely to find outdoors than indoors in my experience.

hi! I'm looking for an ID for this fellow at work the other day (eastern nebraska)

he was about an inch long and really fast. tbh he freaked me out a little bit but he was chill when I took him outside

House centipede! They are chill friends despite all the leggies...or maybe because of them. Love is stored in the leg...

[crevicedwelling]

eye level with a crevice angel, Thereuonema tuberculata.

a sweet pet of mine, graciously sitting still for the camera. I think he has a nice smile

[crevicedwelling]

one of the big male Thereuonema tuberculata molted! the deep blue color will harden to brown in a few days or so.

he regrew 2 legs he lost in the wild. they’re paler than the rest, and a little smaller, but they’ll look the same after the next molt.

[crevicedwelling]

Thereuonema tuberculata N°6 molted. he’s a big old boy, probably a food four years old or so. ugly cute face with fuzz, huge buggy eyes

I think I’ll call him Mouche. say hello to Mouche

[crevicedwelling]

You can have house centipedes as pets :0 how does one do this. I mean i probably wont bc im pretty bad at bug care aside from like. Mealworms. And my millipede but tbh hes less a pet and more a "idk where he came from or what he even iss bc he was in a plant i had got so i cant release him but hes been doing great in the terrarium i made for him with detritus from outside so."

here is my caresheet for them. they are not difficult to care for provided you have an appropriate enclosure, but can be picky eaters and favor tiny prey.

[crevicedwelling]

do you know anything about successful keeping of house centipedes? im kind of obsessed with them but ah. most of the resources online say they've seen people successfully keep and breed them... but when i inquire they direct me to you once again. sorry if this is a question you get asked a lot!!

consult my caresheet on my stupid little blogspot that never went further than two posts! I still have not paired them in captivity yet, but I have raised eggs laid in captivity to adulthood.

it is somewhat outdated already since I’ve learned they are willing to, if somewhat unenthusiastically, eat cut up cockroaches but most of this is still relevant

[crevicedwelling]

went on a rock hunt the other day (mke, wi) and stumbled upon four of these handsome creatures, two of which posed politely. no ID needed, just wanted to share this pleasant meeting with another person who would appreciate them!

I always love to see Thereuonema tuberculata photos! and another datapoint adding to the trend that this species is more commonly encountered outdoors, unlike the indoor Scutigera coleoptrata.

also Mouche says hi to his kin

[crevicedwelling]

for me personally, the most useful thing for overcoming my bug-leg-phobia has been seeing them super close up. from a human perspective, all those legs look impossibly thin to me and it freaks my brain out. seeing them up close helps me to realize that they have 'normal' proportions, they're just too small for me to fully process.

so, if you had any super-close-up photos of a house centipede's legs.... that would be the most helpful thing for me

sure thing! N°6, a big male Thereuonema tuberculata is here to help:

his walking legs are highly segmented and very thin, although they still end in a tiny single claw like other centipedes’ legs (versus the double claw of insects + arachnids). each walking leg is prehensile and several are used together to capture prey, wrapping around arthropod limbs like a lasso.

here’s N°6 politely accepting a cricket drumstick he dropped after this video:

and a video of a Scutigera coleoptrata refusing to shake hands with my forceps:

their terminal legs (also called ultimate legs) aren’t used for walking, and while flexible aren’t prehensile. their purpose is to function as a rear set of feelers, and also autotomize (self-amputate) very readily to escape from a predator’s grasp. the walking legs also autotomize very easily

fortunately they can grow all of those back, and startlingly well! N°8 here was missing five rear legs when I caught him, and after just one molt they regrew. you can see they’re white at first, and a little smaller than they should be, but fully functional. another molt would make them good as new.

I once rescued a Thereuonema from an abandoned spiderweb that claimed 14 legs on one side. it actually did run in circles but it ate well, and was back to a full 30 in one molt.

[crevicedwelling]

Finally made my ugly little blog and put up the house centipede caresheet! It's missing a few pictures but is readable and will keep your creature alive.

[crevicedwelling]

oh, and I also updated this caresheet with some photos of deli cup scuti enclosures!

[crevicedwelling]

you keep house centipedes? I remember being sad a bunch of years ago lurking invertebrate keeping forums bc maybe like two people were even trying to keep any. there just, wasn't any info, and it's not like you could just buy them from places that sold other pet arthropods, so if you couldn't find one in your house you were out of luck. I love 'em and still kinda wish I could keep them as pets

you’ll still need to catch them yourself, but here’s my caresheet:

[crevicedwelling]

(Thereuonema tuberculata)

I love how fancy and dark this species gets! this handsome gentleman tolerated me holding for a while until he decided to return to the leaf litter

[crevicedwelling]

Is tuberculata connected to tuberculosis for some reason?

tubercule is a modification of the Latin tuber, meaning a “small lump or protuberance.” “tubercule” is used in anatomy to describe various bumps naturally found on animals; in the centipede anatomy handbook the definition given is a non-articulated, stout and rounded projection of the body surface.

for Thereuonema tuberculata, I assume the author of the species named them either for the little bumps on the back, or the yellow knobs around the spiracle there—I’m not fully sure which.