Centipedes, millipedes and others – a bit scary, but those living in Latvia are harmless to humans / Article

Representatives of the multi-legged class do not like light. Most species become active and leave hiding mainly at dusk and darkness.

The polyped waist consists of segments, each segment has a pair of walking legs. Some polypods have fused body segments, but this does not affect the number of legs.

This class includes four subclasses:

• symphyla – In Latvia alone, three species of these tiny creatures,
• pauropods – two species in Latvia alone),
• the most frequently seen centipedes – 13 species in Latvia
• and millipedes – 21 species in Latvia.

Centipedes are flat or partially flattened animals whose number of legs, depending on the species, can be counted in tens or hundreds. From this subclass, the most visible and the most frightening to people could be drupes – hard, relatively wide custodes. Centipedes, which are more slender than bones, are earthworms.

Most of their lives are spent in the soil or ground cover. Centipedes are predators, they find their prey with tentacles. The first pair of walking legs of all centipedes has transformed into the so-called mandibles – claws in which poison glands open.

Species living in Latvia do not pose a threat to humans.

The majority of animals of the millipede subclass are herbivores. Unlike the flat members of the centipede subclass, these are rolling creatures. Another characteristic of millipedes: the many segments of their body – fused. The number of legs in millipedes is counted in hundreds.

People tend to consider or at least refer to small crustaceans as insects.

Dozens of species of copepods have been found in Latvia. The most characteristic are various cyclops. Crustaceans are also generously represented in species. Their most typical representatives are daphnia or water fleas.

Relatively many different types of crayfish live in the Baltic Sea. We will not look in the sea water, but we will look at the coast, because not a single species of the order of side-swimming crabs belonging to the sea has adapted well to live temporarily on land. It can be found in the warm season at the edge of the sea at low tide. “On land” does not mean “on land”: side-swimming crayfish that have come out of the water stay in wet algae, at least in wet sand.

Two species of crayfish (broad-billed crayfish and narrow-billed crayfish) belonging to decapods live in fresh water. People in Latvia catch and eat them, they don’t usually confuse them with insects – they either recognize these crayfish or recognize that they are too big to be classified as insects.

But the small water donkey, which – it should be remembered – was selected as the Invertebrate of Latvia in 2024, could be baptized as “some kind of aquatic insect”. He is our only isopod living in fresh water.

Relatives of the water donkey (also isopods) live on land (only on land!) in Latvia – about twenty species of wetlands.

As the name suggests, wetlands live where there is a lot of moisture. They are most active mainly during the dark hours of the day.

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