The other night, I rolled over in bed, and my hand came to rest lightly on Tony's upper thigh. There was an immediate response, and I felt something stretching and growing under my hand. Tony gasped with surprise, and threw back the bedclothes. Neither of us could believe what was there in front of us - it was about six inches long, maybe more, and it looked as if it could do a lot of damage.
What we were looking at was a rather large specimen of a Mediterranean banded centipede. If you were thinking anything else at all, shame on you. Wash your filthy mind out with soap and water - this is a family friendly blog!
I've had a bit of fun here at your expense, but banded centipedes aren't funny at all. They're nasty little creatures, with a venomous bite which is lethal to their usual prey of crickets, worms, spiders and moths. They'll even have a go at a small mouse, and if nothing else is on the menu, they're not averse to a spot of cannibalism.
They don't do much harm to humans - unless you happen to be allergic to the venom - but the one that bit Tony in a place where he'd much rather have not been bitten left a painful swelling behind which took a few days to settle down. I did think of asking the doctor if he could move the swelling across a little bit and make it permanent, but my Spanish wasn't quite up to the job. Oh well, we can't have everything we want in life, can we?
This is only about the fourth banded centipede we've seen in the five years we've been in Spain, but as it's the first one to share our bed, we've now taken some precautions. The valanced sheets have been replaced with regular fitted ones. They don't look so good, but at least they don't provide easy access for aggressive centipedes - and these things are very aggressive. If you see one, don't touch it. They're not in the least bit cuddly.
Tony got his own back on his assailant by picking him up with a pair of tweezers, popping him in a plastic bag and freezing him. That particular specimen won't be engaging in any more nocturnal threesomes!
