Crawly Creature: Friend or Foe?

I opened a sack of potting soil and found a number of these beasties. Are they friend or foe? The sack had been filled with soil that was in a large planter on the back porch last summer.

If I have a right look it is a thousandfeeter ( german name translated). No danger for plants.

Millipede?

Sounds good, Liz.

I dont know about these, but we use to get some in Turkey at camp, they were poisonous, but they were bigger, and the underside of their bodies was orange. The rule was that we started screaming "kirk ayak - kirk ayak" (forty feet - direct translation) and either Padre Gulio or Matmazel Donata came and killed, then disposed of them. We had a good fear of them. But I have seen some here that are much smaller, and I think not poisonous like the ones over there, of course, over there, you never knew what you would find, scorpions were another one that we feared.

Pebble, may be you mean scorpions, the millipedes are not danger or poisonous.

These are about an inch (2.5 cm) long and not the poisonus kind which can grow quite large. I don't know if these are grubs or adult. If they are not harmful to the plants I would like to use the rich potting soil/compost mixture. I got bit by a centipede while in Kyoto some years ago. Raised a welt the size of an orange on my back. This creature is not one of those.

Ludger, we had scorpions also, but the millipedes were different....no possibility that you could mistake one for the other - lol all those legs....and the orange tummy

Pebble, you are right. My message was pretty short,sorry. I was going to say what you told now. My lazybone in myself..

Padre, there is a special bug, we call it woodbug.The larvas look very similar to millipedes.They eat only old wet rotting wood. Also no danger for plants.

Please change your camera to 480 x 640 pixel...mailsize. The pictures will become a little larger but nice for mailing,no very long loading time.
Sorry,for this honest word..smile smile smile.

I would use that soil,hmm I am using selfmixed soil from woods here..

Padre - we have a bugguy - really, a true insect specialist here on daves. I'll see if I can find him.

Thanks Ludger. The picture size was a consequence of my cropping the original and not attending to the resultant size. Your advice is appreciated.

Kinda' looks like a milipede to me, too. We get them a lot and they don't seem to do any harm.

Pebble, I'll bet you're talking about a centipede. About six inches long, dark brown on top, neon orange underside and/or legs? We have them here, too, and those things ARE nasty!!! UGH!!!!!

Thank you to all who have advised me here. It is a relief to know that I can turn to your collective experience and not have to pretend I know what I am doing when I do it alone. Its so much better to ask for advice. Again, thank you.

Looks like what we call a centipede.

I can't bear them but they do eat slugs they also eat earthworms, so it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

http://images.google.com/images?q=centipede+insect&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Don't put him in the worm bin!

Padre, I'd be cautious about introducing soil from the outdoors into your greenhouse, if that is where it is going. There are lots of little critters that can sleep in the soil and cause havoc in the greenhouse. Better to mix up your own or buy bagged potting soil mix, in my opinion. Once the plants grow up a bit, outdoor soil is fine.

I double Weezin's word of advice! Never re-use (at least indoors or in a greenhouse), potting soil that has been outdoors unless it is completely sterilized first. Lots and lots of tiny pests are probably hiding, waiting for good conditions to come out. Mites, aphids, nematodes, etc.