Blog About Animals

Since the Nasa Phoenix landed on Mars, the other day, I have had a renewed interest in aliens. So it was strange for this to happen!

My girlfriend has been trying to tell me that out house is the home of some very odd insects. Her descriptions of a multi legged, big eyed monster of a beast sounded like and alien life form. I must be honest. I was dubious…… but then yesterday, she caught one. And I got some photos.

I know I had never seen anything like this, and it scared the life out of me! It was about 1.5 inches long and had 16 legs (a few were lost when it got trapped in the glass). Sightings of them , in this house, had been seen up to 4 inches, with many more legs.

I had to apologize to my girlfriend for not believing her and now I had seen one, I could not rest until I found out.

As you probably predicted it isn’t an alien.

After an extensive Google image search, I found out that it is in fact a House Centipede.

It looks quite different from your average centipede, as it’s eyes are pronounced and it has 2 long legs for grabbing onto prey. Luckily prey isn’t humans, they feed on things like spiders, silver fish and bed bugs. So not too bad to have around the house then!

Some web sites said that they are capable of biting humans but it is very rare and likely to hurt no more than any normal insect bite.

As you can see the bigger ones look even more like aliens:

For detailed info you can check out this great fact sheet on house centipedes from Harvard.

Have you ever encountered these bugs or anything like it?

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As I type the Nasa Phoenix has finished traveling 85,000 miles per hour towards the surface of the planet Mars and confirmation has been received the the Mars Phoenix has just landed safely on the surface of the Red Planet! Now this is monumental…

However this article is not about the landing itself (more detailed info can be followed Nasa Mars Phoenix Lander Site). It is about what the Phoenix landing might change for us.

We have a good grasp of what we believe to be a life form or an animal. Anything we dream up in our heads is normally a mutated or Frankenstein’d version of what we already know. It is almost impossible for us to judge what a life on another planet may actually look and function like.

Part of the mission of the Nasa Mars Phoenix Lander will be to discover if Mars was ever suitable for life, if there has ever been life on Mars and if so, what was it?

Some scientists are already trying to get people ready for expecting life that we have never seen before and with the recent discovery of the Hottest Life Forms on earth the possibility that evidence of past life on Mars is ever growing.

A recent story from National Geographic talked about a life form that had been found a mile under the seafloor living in hot sediment. This is double the known depth for any life and also probably the hottest conditions that life has ever been found in. They are thriving in the 60 to 100 degrees Celsius sediment and it has been estimated that they could be 10 to 30 percent of the world’s total living matter. The life forms are said to be similar to previously discovered life forms that thrive around hot springs.

I believe that it is almost ignorant for us to discount life on other planets. I am not a religious person but respect religion and do not discount the notion of some higher being or energy. I also believe that they notion of other life fits in well and could be openly accepted by most religious people.

Merging science and religion and accepting that we are not alone leaves us only with the thoughts of what is sharing the universe?

Maybe soon our human fascination will be fueled again when Nasa discovers a small organism developed enough to be called an Animal, living under the icy Mars surface.

We can only hope !!

Will we find life?
If we do, what will it change?
Do you believe that we are alone?
What will the Aliens look like?

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