Scolopendra gigantea is the giant centipede of northern South America, also called the Amazonian giant centipede or the Peruvian giant yellow-leg centipede. Reference works give it as the largest centipede in the world. The Animal Diversity Web puts its length at up to 12 inches, about 30 centimeters, while a 2016 table of the largest living animals lists 241 millimeters.2,8 In 2019 we imported two animals sold to us under this name, plus one S. galapagoensis, and filmed the unboxing. I cannot confirm that my “gigantea” really were gigantea.
Scolopendra gigantea at a glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Name | Scolopendra gigantea Linnaeus, 1758 |
| Group | Centipede (Chilopoda), order Scolopendromorpha, family Scolopendridae1 |
| Length | Up to about 30 cm (12 in) according to the Animal Diversity Web; 241 mm in a 2016 table of record sizes2,8 |
| Leg pairs | 21 to 23, always an odd number2 |
| Range (Shelley & Kiser 2000) | Northern Colombia and Venezuela, Trinidad, Isla Margarita, Curaçao, Aruba3 |
| Habitat | Humid forest floor: leaf litter, soil, rotten wood, under rocks and logs1,2 |
| Prey | Insects and other invertebrates, small vertebrates, and bats in a Venezuelan cave1,4 |
| Venom | Painful bite; mostly reported as rarely serious, with open questions about death records5 |
| Similar species | Scolopendra galapagoensis, from the Pacific side of South America3 |
How big does Scolopendra gigantea get?
The Animal Diversity Web says the species can grow to 12 inches, about 30 centimeters, and gives a normal lifespan of about ten years.2 A 2016 table of the largest living species in each major clade lists 241 millimeters for S. gigantea as the largest centipede.8 I did not measure my animals. What I can say is what I saw at unpacking: the biggest one filled a transport box that was far too roomy for a centipede of its weight, and it was long, heavy-bodied and wide-legged.
Where does it live, and what does it eat?
The neotype of S. gigantea was designated from northern Venezuela. Shelley and Kiser (2000) place the species in northern Colombia and Venezuela and on Trinidad, Isla Margarita, Curaçao and Aruba, and they treat records from the US Virgin Islands, Haiti, Mexico and Honduras as accidental imports or labeling errors.3 Peru is not on that list.
It eats whatever it can overpower. A Venezuelan study watched two S. gigantea feed on bats while hanging from the roof of a cave, anchored by their rear legs.4 Crickets, worms, snails, lizards and mice are on the list in the Animal Diversity Web.2
Is the bite of Scolopendra gigantea dangerous?
It hurts. A Venezuelan review describes the bite as acute and very painful, lasting hours, with tingling, redness and local swelling and only rarely ulceration or necrosis, and notes that some authors almost never regard it as serious or fatal. Cases occur mostly indoors at night in the dry season, and a newborn has been among the victims.5 The same paper counts 106 deaths coded as centipede bites in Venezuela between 2000 and 2009, and then questions those diagnoses, because it is not certain that the animals were identified correctly, and scorpions may be behind some of them.5 Those figures cover all centipedes, not this species alone.
Scolopendra gigantea or Scolopendra galapagoensis?
The two get confused, and the hobby names do not help: the Peruvian giant yellow-leg centipede is sold as gigantea, and the Galápagos or Darwin’s goliath centipede as galapagoensis. In their 2000 neotype paper Shelley and Kiser fix S. gigantea to northern Venezuela and Colombia and the southern Caribbean. They give S. galapagoensis Bollman, 1889 as the species of Cocos Island, the Galápagos and the Pacific coast and western slope of the Andes from Ecuador to southern Peru, and they synonymize Scolopendra gigantea weyrauchi Bücherl, 1950 under it.3 By that account, a giant Scolopendra from Peru is expected to be galapagoensis.
S. galapagoensis is also a large species, and keepers distinguish a dark and an orange color form.6 When it is tapped, it lifts its last pair of legs and also the last three or four pairs, which show their spines. That looks a bit like the warning posture of some spiders.7
Where I got mine and what arrived
In 2019 we drove a good way to collect a package. We are not in the EU, so animals like these have to go through customs. I wanted Scolopendra for the collection, and these were my first. The packaging was not good: loose sphagnum moss and far too much room, and with animals this heavy there should be none. I was worried that one of them had broken something, because I saw a white patch on one animal. I show the unboxing in the film below, and I look at the animals one by one from 0:38.
Three animals came in separate containers. The labels read “S. gigantea” with a male sign on the biggest, a second “S. gigantea” that I took for the female, and “S. galapagoensis” with a female sign. The big male was massive, with wide legs, and he was the one I called a species from Peru. The “female” gigantea was much smaller. Either the labels are wrong or the male is simply much bigger than the female, and if the labels are wrong, I cannot breed them (2:34).
How I housed them
This is what I did, and it is not a care guide for the species. The enclosures were temporary, until a glass terrarium I had ordered arrived. Each was a plastic box of about 60 by 40 centimeters with 10 to 12 centimeters of substrate that I mixed myself: charcoal, bark chips and a little sand, which keeps the moisture. Sphagnum moss went on top, then leaf litter, cork tubes and cork bark to hide under, live plants in one box and a small bromeliad in the other. I show the build from 3:49.
To release the big male I put his transport box into the enclosure, inside a second box, and opened it there, because they are very fast. He came out at his own speed and was curious, and I kept the lid at hand. I also gave each animal a piece of apple. After such a trip I expected them to need moisture, and I know some of you will ask why I feed fruit to a predator. It was for hydration, not as food.
The Galapagos-type female
The single galapagoensis female went into the second box, the one with the bromeliad. She was very nervous and looked for a dark hide at once, and she senses vibration, so I closed the lid more than once. She was very dark, and the legs were not one color: every segment had its own. She carried a few external parasites, and in that amount I consider it normal, since every invertebrate has some at some point. I show her from 9:15 on. She took a bite of the apple and then went back under cover.
The second “gigantea” hid under a log. When I lifted it gently she was resting there: calm, wide-legged and a red-brown color I did not see on the galapagoensis. I left her alone to settle.
What I do not know
I do not know the species of my three animals. The labels said gigantea and galapagoensis, and the sellers called them Peruvian. By the published range, Peruvian giants should be galapagoensis, and the red-brown, yellow-legged animals do not look like the dark one, so the labels may be right or wrong.
I have no wild Scolopendra footage of my own.
References
- Wikipedia (2026). Scolopendra gigantea, en.wikipedia.org; accessed 2 October 2026.
- Meshew, C. Animal Diversity Web: Scolopendra gigantea, animaldiversity.org; accessed 2 October 2026.
- Shelley, R. M. & Kiser, S. B. (2000). Neotype designation and a diagnostic account for the centipede, Scolopendra gigantea L. 1758, with an account of S. galapagoensis Bollman 1889 (Chilopoda Scolopendromorpha Scolopendridae). Tropical Zoology 13(1): 159-170. doi:10.1080/03946975.2000.10531129 (abstract read).
- Molinari, J., Gutierrez, E. E., De Ascencao, A. A., Nassar, J. M., Arends, A. & Marquez, R. J. (2005). Predation by giant centipedes, Scolopendra gigantea, on three species of bats in a Venezuelan cave. Caribbean Journal of Science 41: 340-346; as summarized in reference 7.
- De Sousa, L., Borges, A., De Sousa-Insana, E. & Vásquez-Suárez, A. (2021). Mortalidad causada por animales venenosos en Venezuela (2000-2009): nuevo patrón epidemiológico. Biomédica 41(1): 29-40. doi:10.7705/biomedica.5561
- Wikipedia (2026). Scolopendra galapagoensis, en.wikipedia.org; accessed 2 October 2026.
- Kronmüller, C. & Lewis, J. G. E. (2015). On the function of the ultimate legs of some Scolopendridae (Chilopoda, Scolopendromorpha). ZooKeys 510: 269-278. doi:10.3897/zookeys.510.8674
- Vermeij, G. J. (2016). Gigantism and its implications for the history of life. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0146092 (Table 3, largest living species in major clades). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146092
