Scott McIlvride, age 12, of St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, for his question:
DOES A CENTIPEDE REALLY HAVE 100 FEET?
It is hard to believe, but it is true: There are 1,500 different kinds of centipedes living in most parts of the world. All of them are carnivorous that is, they are flesh eating creatures. The house centipede, the one found in damp houses, preys on undesirable insects. He's actually one of the good guys.
Although most people call the centipede the hundred legged worm, most of them have only 15 pairs and, several families even fewer. One variety, however, the long and slender type found in rotting logs, may possess 173 pairs of legs. The centipede's name in the Latin, actually, means hundred legged.
Largest of the centipedes are the giants found on a small island off the coast of Trinidad in the West Indies. This type measures 12 inches long and an inch wide. He can catch mice and lizards but lives mostly on larger tropical insects.
The centipede's legs are attached at the sides of a flattened body. This arrangement lets the animal slip easily in and out of crevices while hunting. His victims are killed with venom from glands opening in the highly modified first pair of legs, which serve as jaws.
The house centipede, found in households throughout the world, is comparatively harmless. His 15 pairs of banded legs are so very long and slender that they must be held in a bent position. The body may be two inches long and is usually light brown with three dark lengthwise stripes. The creature, who is an arthropod, will rarely bite a human. An occasional bite has a reaction that is comparable to a wasp sting. Best of all, the centipede cleans out lots of very undesirable household insects.
A number of varieties of the centipede can be seen at night by their own light. We don't know why some are luminescent, but this type can be found in many parts of Europe. They have very long, threadlike bodies.
Centipedes move quickly. They reach out ahead with long antennae, and always seem to be searching for insects, earthworms or other prey.
A distant relative is the millipede, which means thousand legged. This creature actually can have up to 200 legs. He's a harmless scavenger who eats decaying plant material.
In some parts of Polynesia, large centipedes are very highly esteemed as an item of food for humans. People in the islands hold the creature by its two ends and roast it over a small fire. They then chew the toasted middle portions and rate it a dining delicacy. Who knows? The islanders probably turn up their noses when offered chocolate candy.