Mike Lindemoen, age 11, of Des Moines, Iowa, for his question:

How many legs does a centipede have?

The name centipede means "a hundred feet"  but the leggy little bug ignores our counting system. The smallest species measure ten to an inch and a few large species of the tropics measure almost 12 inches. The number of legs varies from species to species. The smaller types have as many as 346 separate walking legs, neatly arranged in a double row of 173 pairs. Most species averages 35 pairs, or 70 legs.

The centipede is segmented from end to end. The first six segments are modified to form the parts of his head, including his mouth. The seventh segment has a nasty pair of poisonous claws. The last two are tail segments. Each segment between the claws and tail is allocated one pair of whiskery legs hence, the ones. with the most segments have the most legs. And all the legs are perfectly coordinated to march in step.