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It has 100 legs.

No, it completely depends on the order and species. Well, first of all none have "toes". But if you mean "legs", then anywhere from 7 pairs in a young specimen, to 15 pairs in an adult Lithobiid, to more than 350 in some Geophilomorphs. Interestingly, in Geophilomorphs, the number of segments varies by where they live (see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120712790/abstract), and males and females have different numbers of segments (females typically having 2 more). Some centipedes add segments as they grow, while other are born with all their segments. And no, millipedes don't have 1000 segments either. :)

Here's a good exercise -- do a Google image search for "centipede", and count for yourself. Easier than waiting for a potentially wrong answer from a stranger.

And contemplate a scientific mystery -- in a species that has exactly say 143 segments, how do the embryonic cells know to make exactly that many segments, no more, no less??? How do they keep count?

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16y ago

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