Category Archives: Questions

Most millipedes are not good and caring parents. They just drop their eggs on the ground and abandon them. But some of them spin a protective silken cocoon around their egg mass or dig an underground chamber in which they hide their eggs. A few species of millipedes are attentive parents that care for their [...]

Most millipedes eat dead leaves or other decaying plant material, but a few feed on living plants and sometimes injure garden and greenhouse plants. Only a very few millipedes prey on small insects and other arthropods.

Most Millipedes live in the tropics, usually in damp places: in the soil or rotting wood; in clumps of moss; under rocks, logs, or fallen leaves; or in other protected sites. Many different kinds of millipedes occur in America north of Mexico. As with the centipedes, most millipedes live in the tropics, but about 100 [...]

The literal meaning of the word millipede, a compound of two Latin root words: mill, one thousand, and pod, a foot, is, of course, a thousand legs. Millipedes do have a great many legs, but none of them has as many as a thousand. Some have as few as 80 legs, and others have as [...]

Some centipedes, especially certain tropical species, are among the largest of the arthropods. In the United States, the biggest ones, essentially tropical species, live in the southeastern states and may be as much as ten inches long.

Millipedes belong to the class Diplopoda, a name that means double legs, from the Greek diplo, double, and poda, a foot. Like centipedes, they have long, slender bodies that consist of a head with chewing mouthparts and one pair of antennae, which are much shorter than those of centipedes, and a trunk that consists of [...]

Although most centipedes are tropical, about 100 species occur in America north of Mexico.

No, but if a centipede is picked up and handled, it may try to defend itself by biting with its poison fangs. On rare occasions people have been bitten by house centipedes that they have picked up.

Centipedes that normally live outdoors occasionally wander into houses or, more often, are brought in with wood for the fireplace. But one species, the house centipede, is a regular occupant of homes and other buildings. It prefers damp areas and most often lives in cellars, bathrooms, or closets, where it is sometimes seen running about [...]

No, daddy longlegs do not bite people. They are inoffensive creatures that are of some benefit to humans because some species eat insects and because others are scavengers that help to decompose dead organic matter.