Man Eats Centipedes to Survive

This week, a man from Oregon, which is somewhere in California, I think, broke his ankle while mountain climbing, and was missing for several days. He survived by eating centipedes! And water from creeks.


Photo from University of Nebraska

That's totally awesome. I love to hear nature survival stories like that. I have a few of my own, which I'll get around to sharing one of these days. Like the time we got attacked by bears -- twice -- on the way up Mount Whitney (that's in California, I'm sure).

But I thought centipedes were poisonous ... Hmm. Did a search. The common North American ones (North America is in California, I'm pretty sure) are mostly harmless. Some of them might give you a little sting but they're generally not killers. I wanna ask this guy if he ate them live, or killed them first.

I was at Ta Prohm, the Angkor Wat area temple in Cambodia that was left "as is" when the French (re)-discovered it. The story is that it's been left as it was found and not renovated. I had my hand resting on a stone wall to steady myself for a photo, when I noticed, to my dismay, a bit of re-bar in the wall. Re-bar! What? I thought this place was left as is. I looked closer and the re-bar moved. Oh. Oh!! It was a giant centipede. Crawling through the wall right under my hand. Aren't those the ones that can make serious bites? I carefully backed away and filmed it, it was creepy, crawling there so hidden in the wall, but also serene, almost beautiful.

I just googled poison/venomous animals and -- man! -- someone has got to put together a more authoritative article about them all. There are tons of lists of "top 5" and "top 10" most dangerous animals, and "the world's most deadly animal" but they're not consistent. Some say frogs, some say coral, some say spiders. Actually, one we don't think about but probably does the most killing -- the mosquito -- not poisonous but they carry nasty diseases. I remember seeing an exhibit of venomous animals and there was a centipede that they claimed was a fierce killer, but all the sources I've found today say that they generally don't kill, just leave a painful sting.

This is interesting -- 10 animals you didn't know where venomous.

Oh, here's a children's book about a poisonous centipede -- not recommended for your kids bed time story!