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Circle of Life

Natural History, May, 2001 by Richard Milner

Last July, white strolling through mixed hemlock-hardwood forest in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, photographer John Serrao gently turned over a rotting log. To his delight, he was treated to a rare glimpse of arthropod maternal behavior: a centipede coiled around her eggs.

This brooding female belongs to the scolopendrid family--most common in the Tropics but also found in parts of the United States. Scolopendrids have more than twenty pairs of legs and are usually two to four inches long. Here, what appears to be the centipede's head is really her hind end: she has tucked her head beneath the clutch to make it less vulnerable to enemies.

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Centipedes' modified front legs are poison claws, which they use to inject a highly toxic venom. While the small U.S. species prey on worms, insects, and slugs, their foot-long tropical cousins feed on small lizards or mice and can deliver a painful sting to humans.

Scolopendrids reproduce without copulating. The male weaves a silken web on the ground, and in it he deposits a tiny, lemon-shaped spermatophore, or sealed packet of sperm. The female picks up the packet and places it inside her body. Several weeks later, she lays twenty or so eggs and curls herself around them. Fasting for two months, she cares for them intensively and defends them fiercely. She frequently licks the eggs to keep them moist and even coats them with a fungicidal chemical that she secretes from a gland in her head. Without these ministrations, the eggs would become infected with fungi and die.

John Serrao ("The Natural Moment," page 88) grew up in the borough of Queens, New York City, where he pursued his passion for living things by hunting black widow spiders around Jamaica Bay and collecting cicada-killing wasps in his backyard. After receiving an M.S. in Science and Environmental Education from Cornell University, Serrao (pictured here with a two-month-old black bear) began his career as a professional naturalist, leading nature programs for schools and communities near his home in the Pocono Mountains. His wildlife photography has appeared in dozens of magazines and field guides and in nearly a hundred nature books. Serrao's most recent book is a self-published photographic guide, The Reptiles and Amphibians of the Poconos and Northeastern Pennsylvania (J. S. Publications, 2000).

Circle of Life

Natural History, May, 2001 by Richard Milner

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