Re: Are there really 100 legs on a centipede?

An interesting question you pose, Sally - it is unlikely that the person who named the centipedes (which really does mean "100 legs") actually bothered to COUNT the number of legs on the critters.

According to Funk and Wagnall's New Encyclopedia, there are four principal families of centipedes.

1. Scutigeridae (the common house centipedes) has 15 pairs of legs - 30 legs...far short of the 100 legs
2. Lithobiidae also has 15 pairs or 30 legs
3. Scolopendridae have over 20 pairs of legs, so 40 legs or more...but still generally less than 100 legs
4. Geophilidae have 31 to 173 pairs of legs, so 62 to 346 legs --- so, yes, there probably are some centipedes out there that really do have 100 legs!

http://www.askorkin.com/other/centipede.html

http://www.utep.edu/~epbionet/cheklist/arthropo/al06cent.htm

http://members.tripod.com/NasHBK/info.html

http://www.zianet.com/snm/cent.htm