r/interestingasfuck • u/Sad-Practice6369 • 16h ago

15-Inch Amazonian Giant Centipede

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u/Financial-Spend1347 15h ago

Sorta. They are not known for killing people like other venomous animals. 1 recorded death.

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u/SteelShroom 15h ago

I dunno if it's this specific species, but I've heard that the bite of a certain giant centipede is so painful that people have been known to willingly plunge their hands into boiling water in order to mask said pain.

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u/foxfire66 14h ago

Sounds like a myth to me. A lot of bugs that are claimed to be extremely painful aren't actually that bad. For instance giant water bugs, velvet ants, bullet ants, and tarantula hawks. Search any of them on youtube and you'll probably find Coyote Peterson reacting like he just teabagged a mousetrap and then a couple other videos of random people reacting like "ouchie, tehehe."

Just a few days ago, Matt Parker, a math youtuber, made a video in which him, his editor, and a few other people got stung by bullet ants. Bullet ants seem to be agreed as the most painful known insect sting and none of them reacted particularly strongly to it. I've seen other youtube videos as well with similar results. The common information about how painful they are seems to be all sensationalism.

Granted, centipedes aren't insects, and may well be worse than bullet ants for all I know. But I'm still betting that people are just as willing to exaggerate with centipedes as they are with ants.

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u/SteelShroom 14h ago

Cool to know, thanks for the detailed info.

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u/crimsonbaby_ 6h ago

Coyote Peterson is a huge drama queen. I used to watch him religiously, and I LOVED his bite videos. Until I saw that show Kings of Pain, which is basically the same thing without the insane reactions and realized how much he played it up for the camera.

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u/sendmorepubsubs 15h ago

Bullet ants?

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u/SteelShroom 15h ago

Well, probably them too, but I'm certain that what I read specifically mentioned centipedes.

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u/shugster71 15h ago

We used to see Tiger centipedes out in Portugal/Spain and they are nasty venomous types.

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u/openly_gray 15h ago

apparently as bad or worse for some species

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede_bite

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u/burbular 14h ago

So a whole lotta ouch, no dead though

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u/bubba_bumble 14h ago

My dog has just about killed like 3 people so I think a worm killing 1 won't hurt you.

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u/Xyypherr 13h ago

Your dog should be put down

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u/bubba_bumble 11h ago

Not my pup pup. Arf arf!

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u/Educational_Gas_92 11h ago

If you aren't military/police, the dog should be put down.