Macrophotography
If Centipedes Skeeve You Out…
STOP! Do not scroll further!
Some of my regular readers may recall that my late wife sometimes said I was the Saint Francis of Bugs. She wasn’t entirely joking but was also reasonably tolerant of silly stuff like boosting spiders outside instead of killing them. On the other hand, our son is skeeved out by some arthropods, especially spiders, and (as it turns out) common North American house centipedes (Scutigera coleoptrata).
I live in a finished basement with some of the wildlife. I do get spiders in the warmer months, and I apparently have a thriving tribe of house centipedes that are active year around. Occasionally, I have to evict one from my slipper, but they are harmless to humans, although I hear they can deliver a nasty defensive bite that feels like a wasp sting (which is why I always check inside the slippers first).
While no threat to humans, they are fierce predators of other bugs. I respect and never molest them; they keep all the other bugs at bay.
House centipedes feed on spiders, bed bugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish, ants, and other household arthropods. They administer venom through forcipules. These are not part of their mandibles, so strictly speaking, they sting rather than bite. — Wikipedia
Are you ready for this?
Say hello to my friend Cynthia, Cindy for short. I have no idea whether she is, in fact, female, which can only be determined by careful examination of her other end, which I ain’t doing thankyewverymuch.
This Cindy appears to have thirteen pairs of locomotive legs that establish her as a full-grown adult, but she can have several more molts for up to fifteen pairs. She can live up to seven years. She lays an average of ~60 eggs in the spring. The little ones start with four pairs of legs and gain a pair with each subsequent molt. The babies are itsy-bitsy, but I have seen them.
You may know that, at age 81, getting down on the floor is challenging for me. Getting up is worse. But my tribe of centipedes freezes when the light snaps on. “You can’t see me as long as I remain motionless!” I talk to them, explaining that they are wrong, but reaching for my camera simultaneously. I think my quiet, soothing chatter helps make them stay motionless. Meanwhile, I am somehow getting down to her level, camera cradled in my hand, rear screen flipped out to see and focus, getting as close as I dare so she doesn’t spook. In this case, handholding was a desperation move; I took a chance that one of several frames would be sharp enough to enhance using Topaz Photo AI.
After initial basic processing, I was happy enough to have been able to lift the exposure and open the shadows, but zooming in on her face (my point of focus) showed that the critical focus wasn’t quite there.
Topaz Labs offers a suite of Artificial Intelligence applications for enhancing photographs. Their latest is Topaz PHOTO AI, which combines elements of three earlier apps. I have the full suite and use them all, but this picture seemed to beg for Photo AI.
Ain’t she sweet? See her [crawling] down the street. Now I ask you very confidentially, Ain’t she sweet? — (Milton Ager / Jack Yellen-1927)
A face only her mother could love. Thanks to her serendipitous frozen positioning, this is the first time I have crisply gotten her mandibles and venomous forcipules. I’m pretty chuffed. I once would have had to be satisfied with the processed original. Indeed, I’d have been happy enough with its sharpness since there would have been nothing to improve it. I love the tools and toys of the modern era that permit manipulating a snapshot to look as if it were made with an electron microscope.
All else aside, I think these critters are beautiful in their own right. When you consider that they are nocturnal and work almost entirely in the pitch dark, I wonder why nature gave them their lovely coloring, patterning, and racing striping, all unneeded yet gorgeous (to me, anyway).
📸As always, gratitude for looking in. I sincerely appreciate it! 😊👍
