What are centipedes?
While their name may mean 100 legs, these critters actually have somewhere between 15 and 177 pairs of legs. Centipedes are an arthropod with a flat, segmented body that can be gray to a brownish yellow in color. Each of their body segments contains one pair of legs. They can range in length from under an inch to 6 inches long.
Centipedes move very quickly but they have poor eyesight so they use touch and smell to find their prey. They are carnivores and will feed on worms, spiders, silverfish, and other small vertebrates. During the day they hide in dark damp areas and become active at night to forage for their food.
Why do I have them?
Centipedes are generally found outside and during the day they like to hide in dark damp areas like under stones, mulch, leaf piles, and rotting logs. Centipedes will move inside if they can find those same conditions; in homes they will hide in crawl spaces, basements, closets, and bathrooms.
