2in long 1/4in wide shiny black centipede like beetle

[js.b1]

One length of cavity wall has poor mortar - brick frogs are empty and

30+ clear holes per square metre thro to the cavity.

Left section of the wall was repointed and marmox'd, right section of the wall is still old plaster/browning, middle is bare brick with a doorframe on it. Floor is quarry tile with tredaire dreamwalk and felt- on-jute carpet. The 6in high quarry tile do in fact span a higher-up bitumen DPC interestingly, a not uncommon finding.

Unfortunately woodlice can make it through the wall and eat the doorframe, about 2 a week appear at the bottom. The recent heavy rain meant about 12 came in over a couple of hours - some tiny, some large. None since. I suspect it got too wet for them in the cavity since the roof is not 100% (perfect external except for a bit of ridge tile pointing and I suspect the felt is not so good into the guttering).

Last night a 2in long 0.25in wide shiny black centipede like beetle appeared.

Is that a predator for woodlice or something else?

[Spamlet]

We only have 2 beetles approaching 2" long: the male stag beetle, and the violet ground beetle. You would in no way have described these as centipede like.

So I guess you must be referring to the Devil's Coach Horse, which does indeed eat woodlice amongst other things.

contrary to a lot of claims on gardening progs, some woodlice can be a real pest on root veg and fruit, they can't really eat sound wood. They are also crustaceans like crabs and can manage for ages under water. The only time I've ever succeeded in killing many was by accident, when I had a cat that had fleas, and bought some spray that said to spray round the edge of carpets and skirting boards. Next morning I couldn't put a foot down without treading on legs up woodlice that had popped their clogs. Like me, you would probably be amazed at just how many woodlice you really have...

S

[js.b1]

That pretty much looks like it.

I say centipede simply re "segmented look", but I just saw it and ran for the vacuum cleaner. They mention the grubs are white with a brown stripe? In which case I have seen one of those elsewhere (upstairs climbing the tiled toilet wall). Toilet overflow leak is fixed, but going by the standard of past tradesmen I suspect the cast iron soil pipe (60yr) is not too brilliant. Looks like it may be time to take an outside brick out lower down and examine, I know there was a 14-inch high "mountain shape" wet patch on the inner leaf when I took the plaster off before Marmoxing. That co-incides I suspect with the hole for the soil pipe above, might be wrong, either that of a pile of what used to be the roof wallplate knowing my luck :-)

Re woodlice, a relative's kitchen is a close boarded roof with wet verge, it needs at least the felt redoing if not the edge boards redoing (knuaf cement panel springs to mind, eat that you b@st@rds). However, never put woodchip on a garden, woodlice in monumental numbers.

[Spamlet]

Grubs are quite difficult to tell apart - even what is beetle, fly, weevil etc is not always easy, and it is not always easy to find pictures of grubs unless they are particular pests like the vine weevil.

In which case I have seen one of those elsewhere (upstairs

It is impressive just how far into 'hostile' territory some cratures can get. I often find slugs in the fully tiled bathroom: no idea how they get there.

Toilet overflow leak is fixed, but

Would have thought you'd know from the smell if the soil pipe was leaking!

Before you go mad pulling out bricks, check the gutter and tiles. We had a cast iron stack down an old chimney abutment, of which the wall seemed damp on the inside, but it turned out that the chimney stack had been removed and then tiled over, but the new tiles did not reach right into the gutter. I fixed this with a strip of lead flashing as an 'extension' slid under the bottom row of tiles.

Shame to hoover up the beetle as that particular species is useful and fascinating - not many things eat woodlice (the 'mouse spider' that you may also occasionally come across, is said to eat them, but I have watched one pounce and then give up, so possibly they can only manage them when the 'shell' is still soft.)

These also go when the gutter and tiles don't match up, so water ends up going down the back of the boards - and as the gutter is generally screwed to the same rotting boards, it just gets worse...

A very handy way of breaking down woodchip though!

S

[Andrew Gabriel]

Oh, that matches something I saw at the weekend when mowing the lawn. Looked like a piece of bright shiny purple plastic from a child's toy initially, but on closer inspection it was a large beetle laying on it's back. Never seen any such vivid colours on a beetle - the under- side was particularly impressive, like a purple/blue glass christmas tree ball finish. The pictures on google images are nothing like as impressive. This one was dead.

[js.b1]

I suspect it may simply be a top seam. It is white plastic-adapter - white plastic-adapter - cast-iron, and I recall the person outside saying it leaked slightly on the top edge when it got the whoosh of water from a flush. Does not take much of a drip to end up creating the "wrong" conditions.

Tiling on that edge could do with new felt into the gutter, eaves protector ideally.

Permythrin ant powder works well, lots of upturned bodies.

The spiders we get are 4in span "standing domed" and once an immense

7in "standing domed". Yes they were that big, I measured with a 1m steel rule, no digital camera at that time. As we go into September I will keep a camera ready this time, but would rather not meet that particularly enormous creature.

Reminds me, a lower roof elsewhere does have tiles which do not quite sit into the gutter and there is a gap directly below to the bargeboard. Must deal with that this year - I left a camera up the garden and it finally confirmed a dark wet patch appeared on the outer wall when it had just begun to rain. Cavity walls are good at hiding defects, but removing the soil at ground level showed a tell-tale white hygroscopic salt patch and the skirting on the inside will rust screws quite quickly.

Leave the stuff at the garden centre :-)

[Dave Liquorice]

I'm haveing trouble reconciling "centipede" and "beetle" they look completely different. Centipedes are flatish and segmented with lots of legs, beetles have six legs and wing cases. I don't think we have and black centipedes in this country, they are brown. We do have black milipedes though, these are cylindrical and have even more legs that tend to be underneath the body. Centipede legs stick out the sides.

Centipedes are certainly carnivorus. Donno what milipedes eat.

[Spamlet]

[Spamlet]

Shame it was dead. A real beauty, and the gardener's friend for its slug eating habits.

iridescence you see in life on a lot of beetles - and in flies eyes - often fades considerably in preservation, so some of the pictures you see will appear dull. Also it's best shown off when the thing is moving and the light is thus bouncing about. The violet ground, wing cases when you find them do seem to retain a fair bit of their purple though : rather like that fancy niobium jewellery one sees. The wasp nest beetle (pic I posted earlier) was a shimmering silky grey-green when alive but became plain charcoal when found dead.

And while we're on creeping wonders, we had an oak bush cricket on the wall, and while I was trying unsuccessfully to focus the camera on it, I realised it was watching me. It has curious eyes with a little black pupil, that follows one's every move. Haven't a clue how.

S

[Dave Liquorice]

beetle

Yeah but a 2" long Devils Coach horse? The ones we have struggle to be an inch long. On line references say 25 to 28mm...

[js.b1]

Turns out I have actually seen 3.

One in the hall, about 15mm; one on the stairs, about 20mm.

This one was in fact 35-38mm. I say that from measuring what I saw on the floor re pattern and in particular the cleaner pipe nozzle. It was very large and stubbornly strong (Miele with a new bag has a lot of suction and that thing held on!).

[Andy Champ]

It wasn't following you, their eyes don't work like that.

The eyes of practically any bug are compound eyes; they're basically a bundle of tubes with a lense on the top, each of which sees in one direction only. The black spot is where you can see down the ones that are pointed at you.

The wikipedia article on eyes is quite good; look at the dragonfly image especially.