I’ve been called a lot of strange things in my life, but I never thought I could be called a nematode-lover.
I certainly never envisioned a day when my wife would start referring to house centipedes – those terrifying huge invertebrates that seem to have a million legs and run at top speed – as our “honored guests.”
We’re definitely not “bug people,” so what turned us around?
As an ecologist, I can appreciate that even unlovable critters serve valuable functions in nature like decomposing organic matter and keeping the populations of other organisms in check.
Then again, I never thought the indoors had room for biodiversity or strange “guests.” Living in the aptly named “eco-house” in college (where a dirt floor basement and holes in the walls contributed to hefty populations of slugs, moths, flies, and more) forced me to get used to it, but it certainly wasn’t my ideal living situation.
So you can imagine my unhappiness when I discovered several years ago that I’d moved into a condo chock full of house centipedes.
Then the ecologist in me started wondering why they were there, and what would happen if I successfully got rid of them. I knew that getting rid of wolves in Yellowstone led to a number of problems (e.g. higher elk populations started to wipe out cottonwood groves), and that the centipedes wouldn’t be there if they weren’t finding something to eat.
It turns out house centipedes actually eat cockroaches, ants, bed bugs, moths that can eat clothes, and other household pests.
We don’t keep a pristine house, and living in a condo there are always cockroaches and ants somewhere nearby, waiting to strike. When we realized that these beasts were our front line against even more unsavory bugs, our attitudes towards them changed; after all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
No more vacuuming them up, and no more trying to bring the humidity levels low enough to make them unwelcome.
A Few Million Nematodes
When our household worm compost bin (another adventure in urban ecology) got infested with fruit flies, we naturally wondered about biological controls.
While there were many species of mites, springtails, and other tiny bugs in our bin, we were missing predators.
I ordered a few million nematodes (a kind of tiny roundworm) by mail. Within a few weeks (long enough for the adult flies to die off and their larva to have been eaten) we had a fly-free bin. To this day, I smile when I see the tiny little white thread-like nematodes patrolling my compost bin, looking for new larvae to eat.
My wife has made it clear that bringing in spider eggs from outside to take care of the occasional housefly is going too far.
But we’ve learned that whether we like it or not, we do share our homes with a variety of other creatures.
Rather than dive into a spiral of ever-increasing applications of poison or traps, we’ve been learning to love our allies, no matter how creepy they may be.
(Photos: Centipede by Flickr user robswatski under a Creative Commons Sharealike license; nematodes by Jon Fisher/TNC under a Creative Commons Sharealike license).
Appreciate you ??
When I was a kid, I used to be scared as all shit of these when they crawled out of the drain or when zooming across the floor at high speed. So many legs, meant danger to my mind. About seven or eight years ago now I started seeing one particular specimen in my basement, and decided to look them up. Reading articles like this about how they’re helpful, I named him Frank and decided to leave him be.
I did have to rescue him from the shower a few times, and let him know that I was fine with him being in my room but my face was off limits for midnight exploring. I like to think we became friends, though a few years later he was getting too old- too big to climb anywhere without falling off, too slow to catch the meagre offerings of bugs invading our house. I moved him outside during the height of summer and mourned his departure like I would a favoured pet.
He was succeeded by his many children, some of whom have since grown big and clumsy and gone outside, but many others lurk beneath the trim, behind appliances, and under furniture- doing good work keeping the house clean. My mom affectionately refers to all of them as ‘Franks’, though she still calls me occasionally to shoo away some that have invaded her space. Usually I just pet them lightly and that sends them off, but occasionally stronger methods are needed- a paper towel is usually good to push them away from a space without injury.
I found a house centipede in my house this morning and after my initial startle, I caught it and gave it a fly. It quickly devoured the fly and now that I’ve read a little about them I’m not so leary of it. It is an interesting little creature. I’m more of a spider friend and have taken college courses on them, but this little rascal has me fascinated. Thanks for letting me share.
Really enjoyed this little article! I appreciate all the info about centipedes. As one sits high up on a 45° wall just a meter away from me I figured I should look up whether they eat other insects as spiders do before deciding to get rid of it, and you’ve definitely made up my mind!
To Guy – they rarely bite (typically only if picked up / attached), when they do it often doesn’t even break the skin, and when it does I hear that it’s typically very mild but that for people who are allergic it can be as bad as a bee sting. But even sleeping on a mattress on the floor for years in a condo full of them I never had a problem! To Laura, yes I used Steinernema feltiae parasitic nematodes. It was pretty amazing to watch them go to work!
Just want to add did you use Steinernema Feltiae for your compost bin?
Please accept my apologies for mislabeling the centipede with the label insect. But most don’t distinguish and many of our macro arthropod as well as our micro arthropod remains poorly understood or completely dismissed .
Both are very important, a vitally important facet even in the ability to heal our soils as well as keep them viable .
As in all of nature and we see even in deep space there are components that make the whole and while environment will dictate the components the operation remains the same. Environment , Scale , Time plus One ..
Complexity is awesome..