millipede

wow, that really is huge!!! Centipedes (unlike millipedes) are carnivorous, so it, unfortunately, could be so :S

no, unfortunately not my pet :( this lives in my faculty (I'm studying in faculty of Biology, so we have some interesting creatures there :) ) and these are carrots :D but they are cut in small slices ;) if you take a closer look, you can see soil under the Petri dish with carrots, and that on the left side is a transparent wall of a biger plastic container. So it can't escape :) You have these big ones in your backyard? :) They are the size of a palm. the biggest ones in my country (in the wild) are ~ 4cm long :D very tiny :D but still cute :) nothing has happened to my skin and I have taken them (these big ones) in my hands a lot. :) but I always wash my hands afterwards. And if they are not irritated or scared, they normally don't secrete those poisinous substances ;) all those colourful ones are more poisinous, but even they can cause only some allergic reaction or something like that ;) but anyway you should wash your hands, so toxins (even if they don't do anything to your skin) don't get into your eyes!