Thursday 14 June 2012

How many feet do centipedes have?

As much as the name implies it, it isn't a hundred.
  The word centipede is a Latin word, meaning 'a hundred feet', and although these chilopods have been studied extensively for over a hundred years, there has yet to be one that actually has exactly a hundred feet.
   Some have more, some have less. The one with the closest number of legs to a hundred was discovered in 1999 with 96 legs. This was actually unique to the race as it is the only known species with an even numbered pair of legs; 48
   All other centipedes have odd numbered pairs of legs ranging from 15 to 191 pairs.

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