Eastern red centipede
The eastern red centipede is a fast, orange-red centipede with lots of legs. It has no eyes at all, so it finds its way by feeling and smelling. It hides under rotting logs and dead leaves.
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Fun facts
It has 23 body parts with legs, one pair on each, so it has 46 legs.
It is completely blind.
In summer the mother curls around her eggs and babies to guard them from hungry animals.
It stays active all year round and can keep going in both warm and cool weather.
Its last pair of legs is extra long and has little spines.
Most asked questions about Eastern red centipede
?How many legs does the eastern red centipede have?
It has 46 legs, one pair on each of its 23 leg segments.
?What does the eastern red centipede eat?
Spiders, insects, earthworms and smaller centipedes.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Scolopocryptops sexspinosus
- Named by
- Say, 1821
- Group
- Centipedes and millipedes
- Family
- Scolopocryptopidae
- Classification
- Chilopoda > Scolopendromorpha > Scolopocryptopidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Scolopocryptops sexspinosus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Christina Butler from Georgia, United States. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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