Red Flame Giant Centipede

Centipedes

MOQ 20 head

Partners Only

18 – 22 cm body length (occasionally to 25 cm)

Medically significant. A bite delivers a powerful neurotoxic venom causing intense burning pain, marked swelling, and sometimes nausea, fever or local tissue reaction. Rarely life-threatening to healthy adults but genuinely dangerous — strictly hands-off.

Tropical and subtropical moist forest across mainland SE Asia. Semi-fossorial and semi-arboreal — shelters in soil burrows, under logs and rocks, in bark crevices and leaf litter. The "Red flame" is a Thai colour form. 0 – 1,000 m.

Voracious generalist predator: insects, spiders, other centipedes and small vertebrates (frogs, lizards, rodents). Nocturnal active hunter.

24 – 28 °C ambient — 22 °C cool end

70 – 85 %. Keep substrate damp (not waterlogged) with a drier surface layer and a shallow water dish; ensure ventilation.

None required (nocturnal).

Crickets, roaches and locusts; adults take pinky mice occasionally. Every 7 – 10 days; juveniles weekly.

Terrestrial/fossorial. 10 – 15 cm of moist substrate for burrowing, cork-bark hides and a tight, escape-proof lid (powerful escape artist). Min 30 × 20 cm for an adult. Keep singly.

Fast, alert and highly defensive; will bite readily. Never handle — a hook or catch-cup only.