A post about an unusual find inside a toaster oven has gone viral on social media.
The sighting was captured in a video posted on Reddit by u/notbeuller, which has amassed more than 41,000 upvotes since it was uploaded in the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit.
The title of the post says: “Gnarly bug stuck IN our toaster oven screen.” The clip shows what appears to be a centipede crawling around behind the digital screen of the toaster oven. At one point, a hand is shown touching the screen, as the centipede moves around behind it.
Centipedes, also known as the “100-legged animals,” belong to the Myriapoda group of arthropods, which also includes millipedes and other multilegged animals.
It is unknown exactly how the centipede may have gotten into the toaster oven in the viral video. But “these invertebrates possess a segmented body, an exoskeleton and paired jointed appendages, making them highly versatile in their locomotion and interactions with the environment,” explains a May 2024 study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
These nocturnal carnivores actively hunt for insects during the night, “using venom-injecting claws near the head to immobilize their prey,” the 2024 study notes.
Research has shown that centipedes may also be able to detect light through their antennae.
“When centipedes are exposed to light, they scurry back toward the dark,” said a February 2023 study in C & EN (Chemical and Engineering News). It added that “the crawly critters have temperature-sensing ion channels in their antennae and seem to be able to convert light into heat to activate the channels.”
Using thermal imaging, the scientists in the 2023 study found that “centipedes’ antennae heat rapidly when illuminated and get much hotter than the rest of the creatures’ bodies. When their antennae were covered with foil, the centipedes were much less likely to flee from bright light.”
‘I’d Be Paranoid’
Viewers on Reddit were alarmed by the unexpected finding in the viral post.
U/dEleque posted: “It will bite the s*** out of everything that’s biteable for the next half hour once it’s out. Underrated unnecessary aggressive bugs.”
U/nutcracker_78 commented: “Many years ago I was working in a stable complex and we were doing a full clean while all the horses were elsewhere. These creepy-arse m*********** (centipedes) were EVERYWHERE … they are the biggest source of my heebie-jeebies EVER!!!!”
U/LadyTalah wrote, “I think I would genuinely cry. And then move,” while u/JWST-L2 shared: “I hate everything about this.”
U/Squeezitgirdle posted: “Not even kidding, I’d be paranoid of eggs or whatever. I’d throw the whole thing out.”
U/DariaMorgendorff agreed, saying: “Not even exaggerating I would probably throw the whole thing out.”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
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