the.com/centipede
a venomous floor-noodle wearing more legs than it could possibly need.
means A fast-moving, many-segmented arthropod with one pair of legs per body segment and a venomous bite, typically found in damp dark places.
from From Latin centipeda, stitching together centum 'hundred' and pes, pedis 'foot' — literally 'hundred-footer,' though the name flatters most species, which carry rather fewer (and a handful carry rather more). The pes root is a deep Indo-European traveler, a cousin of Greek pous (as in octopus) and English foot itself. The word arrived in English in the 17th century, borrowed wholesale from the Latin count that nobody bothered to verify.
- leg count
- Never exactly 100, always an odd number of pairs
- predator
- Larger species hunt mice, frogs, and bats
- venom claws
- Front legs evolved into fangs called forcipules
- motherhood
- Some females curl around eggs for weeks, guarding them
- speed
- Fast enough to chase down fleeing prey
scolopendra gigantea — amazonian giant centipede, up to 12 inches long, fastest predatory centipede in the world
scutigera coleoptrata — house centipede found globally, 15 leg pairs, hunts household insects at night
geophilomorpha — soil centipedes with 27-191 leg pairs, found across temperate forests worldwide