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CENTIPEDES and MILLIPEDES

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CENTIPEDES and MILLIPEDES

 

By Frank Hubbell, DO

Illustrations by T.B.R. Walsh

This is a short article to compare and contrast Centipedes and Millipedes. Centipedes are venomous and can cause a painful bite, while Millipedes have no venom and pose no danger to humans.

Centipedes:    Millipedes:

KINGDOM                Animalia        Animalia

PHYLUM                  Arthropoda    Arthropoda

SUBPHYLUM          Myriapoda      Myriapoda

CLASS                      Chilipoda         Diplopoda

CENTIPEDES:centipede

These are not Arachnids; they are Chilipoda.

They are predatory – eat insects, worms, and millipedes.

They have a pair of legs for each segment, 20 to over 300 pairs.

They have a pair of venom claws on the front segment, and they do produce venom used to killed and subdue their prey.

Size: 4mm (1/4”) to 30cm (12”).

8000 species of centipedes.

They have a venomous sting that is painful but not dangerous.

The only danger is the risk of an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis.

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SCORPIONS and The WORLD OF ARACHNIDS

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The WORLD OF ARACHNIDS

 Dangerous to Humans

By Frank Hubbell, DO

Illustrations by T.B.R. Walsh

KINGDOM – Animalia

PHYLUM – Arthropoda

SUBPHYLUM – Chelicerada

CLASS – Arachnida

Arachnids:

They are joint-legged invertebrate animals.

They have eight legs, the front two may be modified into fangs or jaws.

There are over 100,000 named species.

There are 11 Orders of Arachnida:

Potentially dangerous to humans:

Araneae – spiders

Scorpiones – scorpions

Acari – ticks and mites

Harmless to humans:

Scolifugae – camel spiders, wind scorpions, sun spiders, solifuges

Opiliones – harvestmen (daddy longlegs)

Amblypygi – tailless whipscorpions and whip spiders

Palpigradi – micro whipscorpions

Pseudoscorpion – pseudoscorpion, bookscorpion, or false scorpion

Ricinulei – ricinuleids or hooded tick spiders

Schizomida – schizomids or shorttailled whipscorpion

Thelyphonida – whiptailed scorpion, vinegaroons, uropygids

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Japanese Encephalitis

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Travel Immunizations

Japanese Encephalitis

By Frank Hubbell, DO

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is more correctly known as Japanese B Encephalitis.

It is a virus in the family Flaviviridae.

The reservoirs in nature that harbor the JE virus are pigs and herons.

The vector for JE is the mosquito – Culex tritaeniorhynchus & C. vishnui.

JE is not contagious, in that it cannot be transferred from human-to-human. It has to be spread by the Culex mosquito vector.

The incubation period from mosquito bite to symptoms is 5  – 15 days.

The vast majority of those infected are asymptomatic.

Only 1 in 250 cases develops into encephalitis.

Still JE is the leading cause of encephalitis in Asia with 30,000 – 50,000 cases per year.

One in four patients that develop JE encephalitis will die. There is a 25% fatality rate caused by brain damage.

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THE WORLD OF VENOMOUS SNAKES

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THE WORLD OF VENOMOUS SNAKES

By Frank Hubbell, D.O.

SNAKE BITE STATISTICS:

It is impossible to accurately count the number of venomous snakebites worldwide, simply because most occur in rural and remote areas where access to medical care is limited, statistics are not kept, and snakebites are not reported.

 Worldwide:

There are reportedly 421,000 envenomations per year with 20,000 deaths.

But, snakebites and deaths from snakebites are grossly underreported.

It is estimated that the real numbers could be as high as 1,841,000 envenomations with 94,000 deaths per year.

 United States:

Approximately 8000 venomous snakebites are reported each year with 5 – 10 deaths per year.

SNAKES ARE:

       elongated

       legless/limbless

       carnivorous reptiles

       lack eyelids

       lack external ears

       ectothermic (cold-blooded)

       most are amniote vertebrates (lay eggs that contain amniotic fluid, suitable for the terrestrial environment), some snakes do have live births

       covered in overlapping scales

       most kill by swallowing their prey whole or death by constriction

       of the 3,400 species, 300 are venomous and use their venom to kill, subdue, and digest their prey

 

Kingdom – Animalia

Phylum – Chordata

Class – Reptilia

Order – Squamata

Suborder – Serpentes

Family – 20 different families

4 families are venomous

Genera – 500 different Genera

Species – 3,400 different species

3,100 are nonvenomous

300 are venomous

 

Interestingly enough, venomous snakes can be divided into different families based on their dentition and types of fangs, not as you might suspect, by the type of venom they possess. The rest of snakes are fangless, aglyphous.

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