...why I didn't get much gardening done last summer. It was nothing to do with the 40c heat, or the humidity. It was fear. Fear of the CREEPY CRAWLIES that reside here. Winter has definitely passed now and I've spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of months weeding and tidying, we've even dug a vegetable patch. But my memory chose to block out any recollections of nasty bugs (which, by the way, are huge and ferocious-looking), and they've all been hiding and waiting for the warm sun to come out. HA! I will sleep easy no more. Yesterday I saw a small (maybe 7cm) mukade (poisonous centipede - google mukade and feel your toes curl as you read). Well, I didn't see any of them in our garden last year, but they are definitely there this year. And although it was small, I've been warned that the small ones have a worse bite than the massive (30cm) ones. Dreading the appearance of the spiders - there were some true monsters last year and I'm pretty sure it would take more than a cold winter to kill them off... Allow me to introduce you to today's specimen:
I have no idea what it is - if anyone out there knows, please do share! -
Need to get thicker gloves. And some thigh-length wellies. Maybe I could get a bee-keeper's outfit! H's suggestion of chain mail gardening wear is not such a bad idea.
It's a Common House Centipede. Because you know, adding "common" to the name of anything takes the willies out of it. Not.
ReplyDeleteIn Japanese they call them geji-geji which I think is a good sounding name for something so horrible. We have them in our house, too.
Apparently they do bite but not badly. So that's ok then.....
Thank you Vicky! I feel much better now (yeah, right). You are now my designated expert on all things with more than four legs!
ReplyDeletethey also eat other bugs and are 'very shy' of humans, so while they are creepy looking (and give me the heebie jeebies!!) they're actually kind of a good thing to have around. just not in my house!!
ReplyDeleteEeek! I had to scroll down really, really quickly when I saw that picture of the bug! I can't even touch pictures of bugs. Thankfully I didn't do any gardening while I was in Japan.
ReplyDeleteOh..no you had to show this picture.... YIKES... I found one a few times.. they MOVE fast, never saw one in my life until I came here, there one a townhouse we rented once and they came out to play sometimes.... CREEPY.
ReplyDeleteI would second the thigh-high wellies.
geji geji - gross yuk and more gross. I am bad with anything with long legs so would rather deal with roaches and normal mukade. I saw one geji geji last year inside - was first experience. Must have been not a good baby making time of the month or I would have conceived earlier than September!!
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen any in the garden - only oversized grasshoppers and the like.
Happy gardening!!