A Vieques Houseguest

A few months ago I posted a story about finding a tarantula in my Jeep while I was driving to the beach one morning. Dozens of people have told me that it was their favorite article I’ve written so far, and judging from all the e-mail I got there seems to be a big interest in the creepy-crawly things here on Vieques.

Well, since I don’t have a great Vieques fishing story right now, let's meet another charming resident, the giant brown centipede. The handsome fellow pictured here was a mere six inches long. They get twice that size and those black things near its head in the close-up photo are fangs. Oh yeah, the giant brown centipede, which can grow over a foot long, is also highly venomous. Hooray!

Most websites will tell you that the giant brown centipede’s bite is painful but not dangerous to humans. That’s a load of bull. I personally know two people on Vieques who were sent to the hospital with centipede bites. Our veterinarian even told me he once had to amputate a puppy’s leg after it was bit by one. That’s right, the giant brown centipede also kills puppies! If that’s not proof of how evil these things are just Google “centipede eats bat” and watch the video, but only if you don’t need much sleep tonight.

Unlike my tarantula encounter, there’s nothing really funny about finding a giant brown centipede on the floor of your bedroom. I woke up one morning and there it was, a few feet away from where I was peacefully sleeping. It made the tarantula seem about as threatening as finding a baby panda in my Jeep.

After killing the centipede with two cans of Raid and half a clip of .45 caliber hollow-points, I did what any reasonable homeowner would do and decided to burn my house to the ground. Unfortunately, I live in a typical Vieques home built out of cement block and poured concrete which doesn’t light easily. So I did the next best thing and moved out the following day. I’m writing this from the safety of Pine Island, Florida, where the sharks, cottonmouths, and alligators make me feel like I’m in a petting zoo.

In all serious, and before I cause everyone reading this to cancel their vacation plans to the island, this was the first and only giant centipede I’ve ever found inside my house, and my moving to Florida happens every year at this time. It had nothing to do with the centipede. Our friend Art from AA Exterminators has done a great job of keeping centipedes out over the past five years, but Vieques is in the tropics and these things are part of the landscape. Fortunately, the giant brown centipede is a nocturnal hunter and prefers dark and very moist places. Flip over a bunch of rocks or rotting logs in the jungle down here and you’ll definitely find a few. They rarely come inside occupied homes. If this were an everyday occurrence I wouldn’t be writing about it. In fact I wouldn’t even be living here.

It’s not that I’m squeamish about things that creep and crawl. I adore lizards and snakes and have had dozens as pets over the years. Handling slimy fish is what I get paid to do and just about any wild animal fascinates me. But I draw the line at the giant brown centipede. I mean, it’s not only the most horrifying thing on Earth, but it’s also a venomous, bat eating, puppy killer. Where did this thing possibly come from?

For years now the debate between believers in evolution and believers in creation has focused on the great apes. Did we or didn’t we evolve from them? I think that both sides are looking in the wrong direction and need to focus instead on the existence of the giant brown centipede. There’s plenty to debate here.

How did this thing possibly evolve? Nothing eats it and it doesn’t control the population of anything. It doesn’t even pollinate any plant. So what possible purpose does it serve other than to freak people out? There’s no scientific explanation for its existence that I can possibly think of. At the same time, I believe that God loves us and would never create such a thing as the giant brown centipede on purpose.

So I have a couple theories of my own. Either God stepped out for a few minutes to admire His handiwork and Satan snuck in and came up with it, or it evolved on another planet and a group of aliens dropped it off here since they couldn’t stand having them around either. Both theories make sense to me. If we had the technology we’d beam every giant brown centipede straight to Alpha Centauri tomorrow, and that bat eating video was clearly filmed in Hell. So that’s the giant brown centipede, a trick by the devil or a nasty gift from aliens. Take your pick.