Mom on the Menu – Nautilus

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TThe 3,000 species of known centrals from the planet do not initially seem like the type of care. Some are so large that they attack mice, bats and singing birds, while others would have nibbled human corpses. There are those who whistle like snakes and those who are aquatic, swimming in tropical waters by wavy eels. All are poisonous and prefer darkness, hiding in caves, basements or a litter of wet leaves during the day and emerging at night to hunt. In other words, these multiple arthropods.

But for Alex Hyde, photographing this woman while keeping her newly hatched larvae in Ecuador was a dream. Hyde directed a group of photographers in Yasuní National Park, a tenuous protected area in northwest of the Amazon which houses a dazzling range of biodiversity as well as two unused tribes. He was walking on a track through the jungle, listening to the buzzing of insects and screaming macaws, when he raised a fallen log and saw this Mille-Coptes mother rock her offspring. In total, the mass was about the size of an apple. “Many people fear [centipedes]But I thought it was a good time, ”says Hyde.

While the parental tasks of many arthropods cease after the laying of eggs, the females of certain species of central -spots – like that of the Scopendra Like – are more dedicated mothers. They loop their bodies around their eggs to protect them and can continue to keep babies for days after their hatching. Some mothers of central and miles go even further: they become the first meal of their babies. In an act known as the matriphagy, the twisted mass of juvenile centrals will eventually engulf their mother and eat it alive before slipping towards the jungle to track down other prey.

Whether this behavior appears to be frightening or attentive is a question of perspective. However, Hyde hopes that showing this centiplized mother to protect her young people will help people appreciate that invertebrates can be just as complex as any mammal or bird.

Alex Hyde is an independent photographer of natural history. Whether in a tropical tropical forest or its own rear garden, it specializes in small organisms which are so often overlooked. It is based in Peak District National Park, in the United Kingdom and organizes visits and workshops on macro photography.

This article appeared for the first time in biographicalAn independent magazine on nature and regeneration powered by California Academy of Sciences.

• Krista Langlois

  Published on July 31, 2025

  A long -standing independent journalist and a contributory editor -in -chief, Krista Langlois is now editor -in -chief of features at biographical. From her home in southwest Colorado, she writes on the intersection of people and nature for publications like Adventure Journal, The Atlantic, Hakai, National Geographic News, outside, And Smithsonian.