Poisonous Animals of the Desert 



389 



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jaw 



States are scarcely recognized as being in fact centipedes. These 

 small species are entirely harmless to man, though possessed of 

 the same p(^ison apparatus .for killing prey as the larger ones. As 



the more tropical regions are approached 

 larger kinds are found, until, in the equa- 

 torial regions, some are said to reach a 

 length of eighteen inches. In Arizona 

 specimens eight inches in length are not 

 rare, and the maximum size reported to 

 the writer is one foot, this, however, being 

 an estimate, and not an actual measure- 

 ment. The term centipede and cicntopies 

 mean literally hundred feet, and in some 

 parts of our country the small ones are 

 known as "hundred-legged worms." As a 

 matter of fact our largest local species has 

 considerably less than one hundred feet, 

 the number being forty-four, or twenty- 

 two pairs. Some smaller but more slender 

 species have as many as 173 pairs. These 

 counts include in every case an anterior 

 pair which act as poison claws or jaws, 

 and a posterior pair somewhat modified 

 and held in an elevated position, the lat- 

 ter being often mistaken for antennae. In 

 this way arises an existing confusion as to 

 which is the head end of the animal. I 

 have even been asked whether there is a 



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n. — Centipede. Two- 

 fifths life size. Poisonous, j^^^^^j ^^^ ^^^^1^ g,^j , 'pj^g fj-^,-,^ p^J,- ^f 



legs is laid forward beneath the head, wdiere they act as a pair of 

 jaws moving laterally, and within their bases lie the poison glands. 

 Insects are almost instantly killed when seized with these jaws and 

 are then eaten by means of less conspicuous true mouth parts. 



Various texts and references prove to be quite indefinite in 

 their statements so far as specific cases of efTects of bites on humans 

 inflicted by American species are concerned. All agree as to harm- 

 lessness of small kinds, as to effect of poison on prey, and as to 

 painfulness and possible danger from the largest ones. For eft'ects 

 and possibilities of local kinds we must again depend on local expe- 

 rience, which is definite. The waiter has personally known of two 

 cases of centipede bite. In one of these instances a then member 



