21 pairs of legs

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Friday 14 January 2011 18:28

I've been very busy writing up reports for the last few days and the weather has been too awful to get out. I did get as far as keying out my first centipede yesterday though. Here is what I am fairly confident is Common Cryptops Cryptops hortensis. Apparently there are 57 centipedes in the UK in four different orders. The order that these fellows belong to has only four species in a single genus which made it quite easy to key out and is species 3057.

2 Response to "21 pairs of legs"

Gilly Says:

Just wondered, if that was your first centepede have you tried leaf litter in a Tullgren funnel yet, I'm sure you could come up with a few more species that way. Found a very strange myriapod in leaf litter once but I can't remember if it was a millipede or a centipede.

Graeme Lyons Says:

I haven't tried that, I will look into it and give it a go. Thanks for the tip.

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