Do centipedes really have 100 legs and millipedes 1,000?
Some centipedes have hundred or more legs but no millipedes got a thousand. Centipedes (Class Chilopoda) are fast-moving venomous, predatory, terrestrial arthropods that have long bodies and many jointed legs. How many legs a centipede has depends on its species and age. Despite their name, which stems from the Latin words ‘centum’ (meaning ‘hundred’) and ‘ped’ (meaning ‘foot’), thus mean “hundred legged” not many centipedes actually have as many as that number. Some have as few as 15 pairs, others have as many as 173 pairs, but most sorts have about 35 pairs. They normally have around half that number of legs, though it is possible to find centipedes with over 200 legs. Centipedes are highly segmented but with only one pair of walking legs per segment. Millipedes (Class Diplopoda, previously also known as Chilognatha) are very elongated arthropods with cylindrical bodies that have two pairs of legs for each one of their 20 to 100 or more body segments (except for the first segment beh