Saturday, June 07, 2008

The Bugapede


The Bugapede

It's the early morning. I'm still up trying to get stuff to render. My machine no longer crashes. Turns out it was the RAM. I think it was fried. I'm now running the machine on the old 512K sticks....

Just when it started to look like Pumpkin was the only model in the house I went to move my pelican case and viola, Mr. Bugapede! Okay I don't know what sex it is, I'm not sure how you can tell or what to look for or where to look, it's not like a spider with "boxing gloves" after all. Spiders with "boxing gloves" are male by the way.

It kind of surprised me as it moves pretty fast. Luckily I had a jar near by. After capturing it by anticipating it's move and placing the jar down on it, I slid a piece of paper under the jar and flipped the jar over. It didn't take long for me to realize that the bugapede couldn't crawl straight up glass (see UK field research).



I placed my Nikon SB-800 off to the side of the jar then carefully took the lid off. With my 105mm macro I creeped in. The bugapede started running at me. I jumped back. I then remembered that it was still 10 centimeters away from the lens. Sheesh.

The nice thing about the bugapede being in a jar is that you can rotate it to lit it from underneath, it was trying to climb up the side of the jar, or from the side. The photo above and shows details in the eyes (cool!) while the bottom photo puts more emphasis on the translucency of the little guy.

After the small impromptu photo session I took the jar up to the top of the street and let it out in the nearby park near the Danforth .





Does anyone know what the actual name of this bugapede is? Although I like the term bugapede (bug with legs) I thought I'd ask. Please refrain from using smart alec remarks like "It's name is Fred.".

update

Thanks to the information provided by Thor Volokwyn, this in fact is a house centipede. More info can be read here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These bugs are disgusting for sure. And they're hard to catch but if you're fast enough they squish very easily...proper disposal is flushing down the toilet.

Emmanuel Lopez - Motivatorman said...

Damn! These are fantastic photos Derek!

Emmanuel
Motivatorman

BagelHot said...

Thanks Emmanuel...

Who says you have to get out of the house to take photos...

Anonymous said...

Flushing too violently might injure it. They live in your drains but a high flow toilet can get violent.

They're best left to eat your bedbugs, termites, silverfish and other nasties you depend on them to protect you from.

If you have an over population, proper disposal is eating. They can be battered and fried (covered in chocolate even) and they're good protein.

Anonymous said...

From Laer: That would be a household centipede.They have replaced spiders as my number one household creature that freaks me out. They are fast, and have a brilliant talent of disappearing if you turn away or blink.