Millipedes are most always found in moist habitats, while centipedes can be found in nearly any habitat.Ĭentipedes and millipedes can both vary greatly in size. Millipede species are far more numerous, with more than 80,000 different kinds of millipedes compared with 8,000 species of centipedes. Millipedes, on the other hand, mostly eat decaying plant matter, Live Science reports.īoth centipedes and millipedes live on every continent except Antarctica. Centipedes are predators, feasting on smaller arthropods. If it rolls up into a ball and remains still, it's a millipede.Įven the diets of these two arthropods are different from one another. If you uncover an unidentified many-legged creature under a log or pile of leaves and it scatters away, that would be a centipede, according to Live Science. Centipede legs are also typically longer than those of a millipede.īeyond their appearance, you can also tell a centipede from a millipede by their behavior. Centipedes have legs that point away from their bodies, while millipede legs point down at the ground. The position of their legs is probably the easiest way to visually distinguish them from one another. While centipedes have one pair of legs on every body segment, millipedes have two pairs of legs per segment, Live Science reports. And while both types of arthropods have many feet, their legs and feet are the easiest way to tell the difference between a centipede and a millipede. In fact, many millipedes have less than 100 legs, Mother Nature Network reports.īoth centipedes and millipedes belong to a group of arthropods called myriapods, which in Greek translates to "countless feet," Live Science reports. The names of these arthropods - they are not insects, as commonly thought - may seem to be telling, but both names are misnomers because not all centipedes have 100 legs and no millipedes have 1,000 legs. Among those are centipedes and millipedes, two distinctly different types of creatures that are often confused with one another. Learn more about the difference between centipedes and millipedes, their origins and how they are different from insects.Many people don't give a second thought to creepy crawly things in the dirt, but there's a whole ecosystem down there filled with innumerable living things. The largest centipede in the world, Scolopendra gigantea, is a 30 centimetre centipede from South America that is able to eat mice and lizards. The animal with the most number of legs is Illacme plenipes, a millipede with a record of 750 legs.Īn Australian native, the House Centipede, scientifically known as Allothereua maculata, is the most common centipede throughout southern Australia. For a start, the number of pairs of legs in centipedes is always an odd number and the known range is between 15 and 191 pairs.Ĭentipedes have only one pair of legs per body segment compared to millipedes with two pairs of legs per body segment. Arthropods are animals with hard exoskeleton and jointed limbs.Ĭentipedes and millipedes are not insects as they have more than six legs, but the names centipede meaning 100 legs and millipede meaning 1,000 legs is a bit misleading. Centipedes and millipedes are myriapods (Ancient Greek: murias = ten thousand, pod = foot), all of which are terrestrial animals, have a segmented body, a pair of antennae and breathing holes called spiracles.Ĭentipedes and millipedes are myriapods not insects, but myriapods and insects belong to the largest group of animals on Earth, the arthropods.
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