Help me identify this bug I found in my basement

El Mucho

So I found the creature below dead against the baseboards in the basement of my new house. I have a 3/4 inch screw next to it for reference. Is it just a very small centipede? Or something I should be concerned about?

I have an irrational fear of bed bugs...

Arch

Wow! Today's my lucky day!

That is the desiccated remains of a millipede. It looks to be missing it's head.

Don't worry, millipedes are detritivores and the only "danger" they pose is exuding a bad smell when you mess with them

It's very, very far removed from a bedbug

El Mucho

Thanks! I figured it likely wasn't anything to worry about but I've had bad experiences with moving into new houses and my anxiety kicked in.

Arch

For starters, bedbugs are hemimetabolous insects. That is, they undergo a progressive series of molts from hatching to adulthood, and the juveniles look like smaller versions of the adults.

This is in contrast to holometabolous, or complete metamorphosis, which is the life cycle that includes the typical egg-larvae-pupae-adult transformations that people generally associate with insects.

Thus, even if this wasn't a millipede, and was the larval form of some actual insect (millipedes aren't insects, and how closely related they are to insects is a matter of contentious debate....though they are still arthropods...), it still wouldn't be a bedbug, because young bedbugs look like the specimens labeled 1st-5th on the following picture:

Elvenshae

Also, millipedes are fucking awesome to watch walk around.

It's only the loathsome centipedes that have the poison pinchers.