Scolopendra subspinipes

[MrDeranged]

This bite report is actually from Billy Norton. I am posting it here with his permission.

I acquired this magnificent giant centipede from Darrin Vernier at the AS conference in Carlsbad. It is the same centipede that Darrin handled during his demonstration. I confidently bragged to Darrin that I would handle the centipede as soon as I got home. This was certainly not the case. I actually found the big centipede (almost ten inches) quite intimidating. I did however handle my Scolopendra Heros desert centipede without any problems, as I was much calmer with it due to the smaller size and the fact that it's bite is reputed to be less severe.

I decided in order to handle the big subspinpes that I must achieve a state of calm while attempting to handle it. I started by gently stroking it with my fingers everyday. I followed this routine everyday. On the evening of Aug. 3 I found the big pede lying in it's water dish. I gently slipped my fingers under it and lifted out of its enclosure. I transferred it from hand to hand a few times and replaced it in its cage, what a rush!!! WOW! I am now an expert centipede wrangler!! But, I must have a picture of this milestone achievement!!

On the evening of Aug.4th my daughter-in-law is over with her digital camera to film this newly acquired talent! We took the pede into the bedroom so if I should drop it it would fall on the bed and can be scooped up. The lights were brighter in the bedroom then it's used to and it seemed a little upset. But hey, I'm the great pede handler and I can work around this! I reach in to get it and it runs for its burrow, I block its path, this happens twice. On the third attempt it gets partway into its burrow. I gently pull it out when WHAM!, it spins around and nails me on middle finger on my left hand.

At 58yrs of age I thought I had experienced pain. WRONG! I have never experienced such pain. This was at 9pm, at 9:30 I was in the emergency room! At 11:00pm I was give an shot of morphine, which did next to nothing for the pain. I was given a shot for tetanus, a prescription for antibiotics and percocet. I was to take 2 percocet every 4 hours as needed. Two hours later I had taken all 4 of the percocet they had given me until I could get the prescription filled the next day. There was no relief until about 5:30am on Aug 5th. The pain begin to subside and by 7:30 was gone. On the 6th there was still quit a bit of swelling but no pain. I did however get a reaction to the antibiotics which was exciting.

Looking back I realize that in my haste and over confidence I did every thing wrong! My advice to anyone wanting to handle this creature is DON'T !! But if you must; stay focused, remain calm move slowly and don't pull it out of its burrow! Will I handle it again? My wife is typing this so I plead the 5th.

NO HE WILL NOT!!!!- WIFE SPEAKING HERE.

Fangs

Billy Norton

[deadmanwalking]

For the record I would like to say that this was by far the most painful experience I have ever encounted. It all started about a 3 years ago when working at a local pet shop. A customer asked to see one of the centipedes and me being as stupid as i am, offered to hold it. It was a mature female vietnamese red-legged centipede, about 9 inches. I placed the centipede on my hand very carefully being sure not to drop it. I was using the hand over hand method to keep the specimen under control when it started to crawl up my arm. Knowing that if i blocked or grabbed the centipede I would probably be bitten, I figured eventually it would start back down. Unfortunately this was not the case and before I knew it it had crawled under my shirt. I actually had another shirt under my work uniform that day and this caused the centipede to squeeze right up against my arm. Feeling threatened, the centiped sunk it's large fangs right into my fleashy tricep(back of the arm). Immediately a bolt of pain shot through my arm i recieved two more bites before i took my shirt of and retrieved the agitated animal. Upon inspecting my woumnds, i had received 7 large punture wounds. On 3 occasions she got me with her both of her fangs and caught me with one of them. I assured the customer that i was fine and put my shirt back on. I had another 4 hours on my shift to finish. At this point I only had swelling, redness at the sites of the punctures, and the most unbearable pain i had ever felt. I can honsetly say it felt like my arm was on fire. I decided to finish my shift, even after repeated warnings to get to a hospitol. On the bus ride home i experienced some nausea and i decided just to get to the hospitol to get some treatmnet. They eventually gave me some tylenol-3's to cope with pain. But needless to say the pain lasted a good 17-19 hours before it subsided. It was apparent damage had been done because their were signs of necrosis(tissue damage) and the back of my arm was hard and swollen.

I highly don't recommend being bitten unless you have a high threshold for pain.

[Woody]

Let me tell you about the most extreme pain I have ever experienced.

On Wednesday May 7th, i was bitten by my scolopendra subspinipes at around 3 PM. This specimin is 8 inches in length. I was cleaning out its cage when it came out of hiding, and crawled real quickly onto my hand. Afraid of startling or injuring the centipede, I decided not to make any quick movements, and to let it crawl off of my hand on its own. It started moving away, but quickly doubled back and struck me on my middle finger.

At first, it felt like just a bee sting. I looked at the finger and saw 2 punctures, and very little blood was coming out of the holes. I quickly washed my hands with warm water, and sat down. After 15 minutes, the finger started swelling considerably, and turned red. This is when the pain really started, and I decided I must go to the hospital. By the time I had gotten to the ER, an hour had passed, and the pain was really bad. It literally felt like my hand was on fire. I registered, and sat down in the waiting room. At about 4:30 PM, an hour and a half after the bite, the pain had really increased, and my hand, wrist and forearm had swelled up. At 5:00, i was still waiting in the waiting room, and the worst thing happened. I had been feeling fine, other then my arm being on fire, when all of the sudden I felt nauseous and very dizzy. I began sweating profusely, and my ears were ringing and my eyesight went black. My face lost all color, my lips were gray, and my eyes began rolling back into my head. I nearly passed out, the only thing that kept me from passing out was an ice pack that a nurse put on the back of my neck. They laid me on a bed, and I began to feel better. To treat the swelling and pain, I was given benadryl through an IV, and I was given 2 percocet pills. After tests and calls to poison control, I was released from the hospital after being there for 4 hours.

The following morning, my hand was still swollen a lot, but the pain had gone away considerably. There was very mild pain. Here we are 34 hours later, and my hand is still very swollen, but I feel no pain. All joints in my fingers are stiff, along with my wrist.

This was BY FAR the most extreme pain I have ever felt. I HIGHLY recommend that you use extreme caution if you ever plan on putting your hands near these bad boys. They are no joke, and should not be underestimated.

[Comatose]

About 4 years ago I took a nasty bite from a 6-7" suspinipes. I was pawing through her tank, picked up a rock and was bitten before I realized that she was under that particular rock. Upon feeling the nasty pinching/burning sensation I ripped my hand from the tank, only to see the centipede still attatched to my middle finger! Long story short the ensuing 24 hours were the most painful this side of breaking my arm in three places. I still had a bump at the site over a year afterwards.
Last week I was bitten by a black widow, and I'd choose the black widow hands down over a S. suspinipes.

[Elytra and Antenna]

Today I got in 10 wild-caught S.subspinipes all around seven inches (10 inches for people without measurement devices ). I was feeling very skittish around these guys for fear of the incredible bite. 2 had some damage and I wasn't being careful and one of them nearly got out of the deli-cup when I was pulling out the moss and towel to replace with coc fiber. I used the lid to get it back in without a hitch. Whew!!

Well, I decided to feed all my new arrivals. The healthy ones are in the wide, shallow, clear plastic containers most giant centipedes are kept in. I slowly pried up the lid on each container at the opposite side the centipede faced and dropped in a cricket. No trouble. On the last one I had the lid up barely half an inch when the animal shot out like lightening and bit my finger. The pain hadn't come yet so I quickly put a bucket on my escapee who had made it to the floor.

I looked at my finger and saw the familiar cut of the centipede bite and felt a tingle. "Oh crap, my whole day is going to be ruined!" I've been bitten by four inch centipedes before but they never hurt much (like a Polistes wasp sting, nothing like a yellow jacket and not on the same planet as an assassin bite). I felt sad about my ruined day and felt frightened as I waited for the intense pain and swelling to begin. I gave up the wait after fifteen minutes. It's been 90 minutes and it's a little tender. Comparing this bite to a Platymeris bite is akin to comparing a grain of sand to the earth (my body involuntarily shook any time I had my hands in the cage for six months after a Platymeris biguttata bite). Maybe my subspinipes didn't give me the 'full dose' of venom. I'm sure I'll find out since I'm not scared of them anymore.

[DravenXavier]

I definitely found the right forum on this one. We received a subspinipes today in a shipment from Florida at the store I work at. Upon arrival, it seemed the centipede had not made the trip alive. I opened the container gently and pulled out some of the paper towel in it. The centipede dropped to the bottom of the container, not moving, and remaining upside down. I pulled the rest of the paper towel and removed the lid to the deli container. I reached in to gently move the centipede (presumed dead) to remove a little more of the paper towels. Big mistake. Before I even realized it, it bit me, and took off across the floor. I quickly covered him with the deli cup before he could get more than a couple feet. The pain wasn't too bad, so I went about setting up his permanent cage. After a few minutes though, my hand began to tingle and throb. That's when I knew I was in for a long day (still over 9 hours of work left!) 10 minutes into it, and the pain began to really intensify. 20 minutes later, and it felt a bit worse than a hornet. This continued for 4 or 5 hours. At about 7:00 PM tonight, the 'hornet sting' feeling had disappeared (7 1/2 hours after the bite). The pain was centered at the knuckle of my right pinkie finger (I was bitten 1 inch from the tip of my finger), and it had now changed to feeling as though I'd broken my hand. It's now 12 hours later, the pain has not decreased, and I am currently typing this patiently with my left hand and my right thumb and forefinger . I've applied some benadryl cream and it's helped very slightly. My hand is now swollen halfway to my wrist, and my wrist and elbow are also sore, though probably from holding my hand in weird positions all day. I will try to post the rest when all symptoms have subsided.

[Python]

I was bitten by one of these two days ago. About an 8" female. I opened the cup to remove some wadding that came in it for shipping and it immediately reached out, found my hand, and decided to take a stroll up my arm. It wandered around my body from waist to head for a couple of minutes while I tried in vain to get it to walk back into the tub it arrived in. She then found the gap between my chest and my shirt and this is when it got interesting. She crawled straight down my shirt and started going around to my back. Scorpdemon, his giirlfriend, my girlfriend and all my co-workers were laughing at the predicament I was in until I uttered the words "it bit me" seconds after it bit me it fell out on the floor where it was scooped back into it's container. We all looked at the bite site and found there were several holes and a large swollen area that was turning into a bruise already. There wasn't much pain associated with it but there were some tense moments as I realize that these are potentially dangerous. I was lucky this time and I plan to be MUCH mroe careful the next time I have to open anything at my house.

[Wolvie56X]

yeah i seem to have bad luck with the babies, but so far a baby Tarantulas, baby Pede and now a baby scorp got me all in 1 month

while NEVER being stung or bitten by anything else til now, good track record eh? hehe

2" Pedeling

was removing the Pedelings from the mothers tank and while removing the babies, i tried grabbing one with my fingers

well, then the lil bugger turned around and sunk its fangs right into the stop of my left index finger, sending a nice amount of venom by the tingling sensation i started feeling after

tingling, slight pain, for a few hours, the tingling went away after about 2 hours, pain went away after about 30 minutes, cant imagine the mother getting ahold of me

[beetleman]

well, i can tell ya how it feels getting bit by a large hong kong giant(8in) i have 19 centipedes(all kinds) i was feeding/watering,and they all pretty much go underground when i open their containers,but not this one she bit me so fast i didn't have time to move back(like lightning!! ) it was only a second bite,inthat second what ever "little" venom she injected,well it was the WORST!!!!!! pain i ever felt it didn't start to hurt right away but within about 10min that was it,i thought i would ride it out(yeah right ) ive been bit by smaller ssp. but this no way,my hand blew up like a catchers mitt the pain kept getting worse and worse,and it was traveling up my arm,had to go to the hospital, they had no idea what a centipede was!!! i had to tell them about it while i was suffering,they went on their comp and looked it up, they gave me all kinds of meds,and i finally started to feel better after dying for about 10 hours!! lots of ice ofcourse, should've went to the hospital as soon as i got bit. now when i go to feed i watch her very carefully she still rushes the container!!! so give these guys respect,they are really dangerous,but i still luv em