On a remote volcanic outcrop in the Sou Pacifi, a giant, carnivorous centipede is quietly rewriting what we think we know about food chains. Instead of scavenging scraps, this invertebrate hunts live seabird chicks, killing and eating thousands of them every year. The scale of the slaughter is so large that it rivals the impact of invasive mammals on other islands, yet the predator itself is a native species that conservationists are also trying to protect.
The story of this bird‑eating insect is not an isolated curiosity. Around the Southern Ocean and South Atlantic, seabird colonies are under siege from a suite of unexpected killers, from monstrous centipedes to mice that have learned to eat albatrosses alive. Together, they are turning some of the world’s most important breeding islands into death traps for chicks that never get a chance to fly.
Inside the life of a giant bird‑eating centipede
The centipede in question lives on Phillip Island, a small, rugged island near Norfolk Island where seabirds nest in dense burrows and surface scrapes. Researchers have documented that these Phillip Island centipedes can reach nearly 25 centimetres in length, with powerful venomous claws that allow them to overpower prey far larger than the insects and small reptiles most people associate with invertebrate hunters. Detailed field observations show that the centipedes actively patrol nesting areas at night, seizing downy chicks and subduing them with repeated bites, a hunting strategy that turns fluffy petrels into routine meals for an arthropod predator that looks like something from a fossil record rather than a modern shoreline.
Earlier work on the island’s ecology has described how these Phillip Island centipedes sit near the top of the local food web, feeding on everything from insects to vertebrates and even other invertebrate predators. Their size and venom give them a reach that is unusual for island arthropods, and the seabird colonies provide a dense, predictable food source that has helped the centipede population thrive. As a result, the centipede has become a keystone predator, shaping the abundance and behaviour of other species in ways that scientists are only beginning to quantify.
The toll on black‑winged petrel chicks
For black‑winged petrels, the centipede’s success comes at a brutal cost. On Phillip Island, researchers have calculated that the giant, carnivorous centipedes are killing and eating up to 3,700 black‑winged petrel chicks every year, a staggering figure for a single invertebrate predator. Night‑vision footage and nest monitoring show the same grim pattern: a centipede enters a burrow, latches onto a chick that cannot yet defend itself, and methodically consumes it, sometimes dragging the carcass out into the open. For a species that relies on high chick survival to offset the risks of long ocean foraging trips, that level of predation can erode breeding success across an entire colony.
What makes this particularly striking is that the centipede is not an introduced menace but a native hunter that evolved alongside the island’s wildlife. Conservation biologists studying Giant bird‑eating centipedes on Phillip Island have argued that the predator plays a crucial role in nutrient cycling, turning seabird biomass into a form that fertilises the island’s soils and supports plants such as the iconic Norfolk Island pine trees. In that view, the gruesome nightly raids on petrel burrows are part of a long‑standing ecological bargain, where seabirds feed at sea and bring marine nutrients back to land, and the centipedes redistribute those nutrients through their highly varied diet.
From viral “craziest creature” clips to conservation reality
The idea of an insect large enough to devour baby birds has naturally spilled into popular culture. Online videos framed as “craziest creature facts” have introduced audiences to the giant bird‑eating bug, with one clip inviting viewers to meet an invertebrate “so big it can eat birds” and showcasing the centipede’s predatory behaviour in a format designed for quick social media consumption. In one such segment, shared under a Jul posting, the centipede is cast as a horror‑movie villain, its many legs and darting movements edited for maximum shock value rather than ecological nuance.
Another short video from the same franchise, branded as Dang Nature Your, leans into the same theme, presenting the giant bug that eats birds as a spectacle to gasp at and share. I see a risk in that framing. While it captures attention, it can flatten a complex conservation story into a meme, obscuring the fact that the centipede is both a ruthless predator of seabird chicks and a native species that managers are reluctant to persecute. The viral fascination does, however, create an opening to talk about how island ecosystems really work, and how the most unsettling behaviours can be part of a functioning, if fragile, natural system.
When the killers are invasive: the mouse crisis on Marion and Gough
If Phillip Island’s centipedes are a disturbing example of native predation, the situation on Marion Island and Gough Island shows what happens when the killers are not supposed to be there at all. On Marion Island, in the southern Indian Ocean, an estimated million mice have learned to attack live seabirds, gnawing at the heads and bodies of albatross chicks that sit helpless on their nests. Reporting on Marion Island has described how The South African research presence there now doubles as a front‑line witness to this slow‑motion disaster, with field teams documenting gruesome wounds and rising chick mortality.
Conservation groups linked to the The Mouse, Free Marion Project have warned that Marion Island’s seabirds are under severe threat as the mice continue to spread and adapt. The Mouse, Free Marion Project team, including Jul and Action, has highlighted how the rodents, originally stowaways from ships, have shifted from eating seeds and invertebrates to targeting live chicks, a behavioural change that now puts entire colonies at risk. Written By Sally Esposito, the project’s communications have stressed that without intervention, the island could lose some of its most iconic species within a few decades, as each breeding season adds another layer of losses to an already stressed population.
Two million lost chicks and the race to eradicate
On Gough Island in the South Atlantic, the numbers are even more stark. Anyone who follows the story of Anyone will know that 2 million seabird chicks are lost from Gough every year, largely because of mice that have adopted the same gruesome tactics seen on Marion. These rodents, introduced by humans, now swarm nesting sites at night, chewing through the skin and muscle of live chicks that are too large to be carried away but too immobile to escape. The scale of the carnage has turned Gough into a case study in how quickly an island that once teemed with life can be pushed toward ecological collapse.
Scientific work on Albatross eating Mice on Gough Island in the South Atlantic has quantified the impact, finding that these rodents are responsible for 2 million fewer seabird eggs and chicks on the UK‑administered island each year. The same research warns that several species, including some albatrosses, are now at the risk of extinction if the predation continues unchecked. For me, the contrast with Phillip Island is instructive: on Gough, the predator is an invasive mammal that managers are racing to eradicate, while on Phillip, the killer is a native centipede that conservationists are trying to understand and, in some respects, safeguard.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
