The 12 cm long centipede with a nasty bite
The horsemen of the apocalypse enjoyed their recent holiday in Almeria. Such a pity their colleague War was stuck in Syria or Afghanistan and couldn’t make it! They organised fires locally and flooded the place a few days later. Then they organised a plague of man eating mosquitos for good measure.
Once on a visit to Scotland I bought two amazing books; one called Mountain days and bothy nights which has nothing to do with mosquitos and everything insteadto do with Scottish mountaineering history and the shelters used; the is called other Midges in Scotland which does have something to do with all things bitey. Owning both does risk me being labelled as an anorak but knowledge is power!
Mosquitos are a fiendish bunch; they smell human sweat and the CO2 we breathe from 100 feet away, they see us moving and feel our body heat too. Just like Alien from the movie yuck! It’s my mission to rid the world of them; and wasps while I am at it. Because of the standing water after the deluge the bleeders have been randy little sods making lots of babies and telling them all to come and find me. It takes around 12 days for a mosquito to hatch and right on cue the place was teeming with them about two weeks after the flood.
Tiger mosquitos are huge and don’t do the polite thing by hiding by day, no they hang around in full sun looking for blood, my blood. Luckily we have a vestibule at our new home so that’s the quarantine room. I can get in through the front door and check none have followed me in before then going through the next door into the house. The bedroom is now an oxygen tent with the door closed except for absolute emergencies like wanting to go to bed at night.
Only female mosquitos bite – the same with all species really! Males mate once and then die a few days later whilst females can live for over a month laying up to 500 eggs which need blood to grow, Horrid! Check gardens for anywhere stagnant water can lie and get rid of it or mosquitos may lay eggs there. Granulated chlorine as used in pools is great for killing the little devil larvae if you have a fountain for example or anywhere else where pets don’t drink from.
Before the plague of locusts – sorry I meant mosquitos our beautiful new hibiscus plants by the pond were being eaten one by one. First we thought it was the green leaf cutter insects but after some internet research and seeing rabbit droppings everywhere we realised that putting succulent juicy plants in pots next to where the local rabbit population comes for a drink was not the best idea. The solution is easy but can only be done by us males by peeing on the plants. Females are allowed to try this also but shall probably miss and wet their shoes instead.
As well as a plague of mosquitos and being overrun by rabbits the next attack was from a Megarian Banded Centipede (Scolopendra cingulata – escolopendra). These nasty things painfully bite on sight, so the fact that our mattress was on the floor whilst we waited for a new bed frame presented the little horror with a great opportunity to nip under the bed clothes and bite the hell out of us both! Hunting killer centipedes at 3am with a big stick is not to be recommended as sport!
Findmeahome in Spain's Blog 
Awesome as per normal Stevinho