ムカデ京都Japan is paradise for insect lovers.
Separated from the Asian continent 20,000 years ago, many species have evolved over the years and exist nowhere else on earth.
Moreover, Japan is a bug-friendly country. Young boys take to the woods on weekends armed with their nets in search of beetles.
This fascination with insects can be found in children's stories, manga, and animation.
While we were dodging dead snakes - crushed on the pavement by automobiles - on the ride up to Kumogahata, we spied a small nasty little creature wriggling its way across the street.
It was the dreaded mukade, or poisonous centipede. This one was about 10 cm (3 inches) long.
In city parks, this would be a fairly large mukade; in the country they can grow twice this size.
And they are poisonous.
A bite will not kill an adult, but infants and small animals need to be wary. A neighbor's 15 kg dog was nipped on the hind leg, and could not move it for three weeks.
Older people are said to keep the juices of a mukade on hand as a salve. By applying these juices - gleaned by boiling a mukade - it is said to act as an antidote.
© CycleKyoto.com
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Japanese Mukade
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