This is a very sad story about an
unfortunate French musician in Mexico killed by the grip or bite of
a centipede. What the French army was doing in Mexico in 1867 I
don`t know. (Anyone?) . This story was in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner and
New England Advertiser ( Grafton, New South
Wales) 23rd April 1867;
“ A
musician belonging to one of the French regiments has just met with an
extraordinary death at Vera Cruz. He was engaged to play at the ball, and being
very thirsty went out into the garden, and finding a water-bottle on the
terrace, took it up and drank freely. Suddenly he raised cries of agony, and
upon assistance arriving it was found that an enormous centipede had fixed its
mandibles in his throat. The animal had taken up its abode in the neck of the
bottle, and was washed into his mouth in the act of drinking. A surgeon who was
called was obliged to cut it to pieces , but the poison from the bite caused
death in a few hours.” (1)
Now I ain`t no expert on arthropods, but Wikipedia
suggests that although poisonous, centipede poison is not thought to be potent
enough to kill a human (“except those who are allergic to the toxins.” 2)
However, Dale Drinnon tells me that
indeed, giant centipedes could definetely kill a man and that Eberhart said
that there were reports of giant centipedes in the S.
U.S.A. What strikes me about this case is did the musician die of
shock or did the poison kill him? Or both?. Or if there is something more than
the usual giant centipede here was it that his windpipe was pierced?
Apparently in the Solomon Islands there is a species of
centipede so deadly that victims have been known to plunge their hands into
boiling water in order to aleviate the pain, the intended cure being worse than
the bite!(3) Wood says (see ref 3 below) that bites are NOT inflicted by the
jaws but by the curved horny claws of the front pairs of legs which serve as
fangs.
In my magazine Flying Snake no. 1 I examined, with Mike
Hardcastle, giant centipedes in Hong Kong which can grow up to 60cm long
according to anecdotal reports(4) Christopher Columbus`s gold assayer, the
Spaniard Ulloa, saw centipedes 91.4 cm long
apparently.(5)
- Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New
England Advertiser April 23rd
1867.
- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scolopendra_gigantea#Venom
- Wood`s Guiness Book of
Animal Facts and Feats 3rd ed 1982 p. 134
- R.Muirhead and M.Hardcastle
The Giant Centipedes of Hong Kong . Flying
Snake 1 April 2011 pp 24-30
- Wood op cit p.
133
In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.
2013 looks set to be a promising year
musically. Even forgetting David Bowie's magnificent return, there are new
albums by The House of Love (the one track I have heard so far is magnificent)
and The Flaming Lips to look forward to. As I type I am having my first listen
to the latter which already appears to be uncompromisingly strange which is no
bad thing. I am particularly impressed by the latest output from Galileo Records
in Switzerland, and will be interviewing Andy from Zenit tomorrow
evening.