r/todayilearned • u/mvincen95 • 1d ago

TIL that despite their name, it is biologically impossible for a centipede to be born with exactly 100 legs because a genetic quirk dictates they always have an odd number of leg pairs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede
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u/Wrong-Ad-4600 20h ago

in german ist "hundertfüssler"(hundret legs) and "tausendfüssler"(thousen legs)

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u/the430autogyro 19h ago

IIRC in Greek it is forty-legs. Can anyone confirm?

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u/IWanTPunCake 19h ago

Dunno about greek but turkish is also 40 legs

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u/Sharlinator 19h ago

Well, those are exact translations of centipede and millipede. But the Dutch ones aren’t, apparently they like to exaggerate.