When I say 'crossed my path', I mean it fell out of the pile of laundry I picked up from the bedroom floor. I saw something move and knew immediately that I had to catch it and remove it, as the rest of the family don't do bugs of any description. Somehow it has always been my job to get rid of spiders, moths, mosquitoes, flies, fish moths, geckos and anything else that could possibly cause the slightest irritation, inconvenience or life-threatening situation. (I removed a snake once, but have yet to reveal that to HWCFA.)
This thing moved like the wind and at first glance I knew I had never seen anything like it. It looked like an insect with centipede legs and the body was 3cm long. I grabbed a sock and swooped. By good luck, I had it first time and took it outside to take a closer look and photograph it for identification. I had to catch it a few times before it stood still long enough to take the photo - have you ever tried to get a bug to pose? I posted the photo on Facebook and waited for someone to ID my visitor. Suggestions ranged from twenty-legged, long-tailed windrunner to gedditoutahere.
Many people responded to my request and in no time it was identified as a house centipede. A look on Google told me that it eats silverfish, flies, spiders, moths, mosquitoes and bed bugs(!), so I rushed back outside to see if I could find it and bring it back inside as a welcome guest, hoping it had a large family to bring with it, but it was nowhere to be seen. Its main feature is speed: 0.4m in 1 second - impressive, and so I was lucky to catch it.
Although it is admittedly a very useful creature, I can't say that I would enjoy having it run across my face in the night!
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