Order: Myriapoda
Classes: Diplopoda & Chilopoda

These are invertebrates, or animals with no backbone.  They have an exoskeleton.

What's the Diff?

What is the difference between centipedes and millipedes?

Centipedes

• From the class; Chilopoda.

Photograph by M Heslan
This centipede above was found under our tent when we were staying on the beach at Denham Western Australia.

• *Centipedes are usually more active at night.
• *Centipedes have one pair of legs on each segment of its body. 
• *The body is flatter than the millipedes body.

• *Centipedes run faster than millipedes.  Only one leg out of every 8 legs is touching the ground at a time.
  
• *Centipedes are fierce hunters that catch invertebrates and other centipedes in dead leaves.  Centipedes detect their prey by feeling the movements of that insect. Caterpillars are an easy catch.  The centipede chews it with their mouthparts.
  
• *The centipedes front pair of legs have sharp pointed claws that curve forward and look like fangs.  They inject venom and a bite can be very painful!  Seen here magnified 60x 

This is the underneath the centipede magnified 10x

• Centipedes sometimes have to run backwards to avoid being a meal themselves.

• The long last legs are to wave around to ward off predators.

• Some centipedes are long lived. 

Millipedes

• From the class; Diplopoda

Name means "a thousand feet" but they never have that many feet. 

This millipede was already dead and was found in the Darling Ranges in Western Australia.

Millipedes are usually more active in the day.

• Millipedes have two pairs of legs on each segment although the segment is really two segments fused together. 

This is a millipede magnified 60x

• Millipedes body is rounder than centipedes. 

• Millipedes eat rotting wood, dead plants, and fallen leaves.  Another great recycler of nutrients.  
  

• Millipedes move around much more slowly than centipedes.

• Millipedes do not eat each other.

• A millipedes defense is to burrow quickly under ground or under a rock, or sometimes to coil up into a circle and hope the danger will pass.  Some millipedes can squirt a foul smelling chemical to deter something from eating it.  

• Millipedes can be found under bark or logs, in moss, under fungi and leaf litter.

• Many millipedes have no eyes.

   

This is a long legged centipede but is not as long in its body as the other centipede at the top of this page.  This centipede was in someone's home in Leeming, Western Australia. 

These long legged centipedes can drop a few legs if they need to get away from a hungry bird.

Here are the front claws used like fangs of the long legged centipede magnified 60x.

This is underneath the centipede.

This is underneath the centipede magnified 60x

You can see that this centipede has an eye.  This was magnified at 60 times. 

This is the leg of the centipede magnified 60x 

Most male centipedes have specially designed mating legs on the seventh segment of their body which they use to transfer sperm to the females genital opening.  Other males make a silk sac where they put their sperm for the female to collect.  Sometimes males will wave their antennae in the air like a dance to attract the female to come over and take the sack. 

After centipedes or millipedes have mated the female will lay eggs.  Most  young look like short grubs with 3-4 pairs of legs.  They are called nymphs.  They molt around 7 times before they look the same as their parents.  Some species hatch complete with all their legs. 

This is part of an exoskelton found on the top of the water fall at Ellis Brook in Perth

The eggs have to be kept clean if they were laid in a damp place, as the eggs will get moldy and die. Sometimes only one egg is laid and not all females stay and guard their eggs. 

This picture is from "Centipedes and Millipedes" by Theresa Greenaway and Photograph by Chris Fairclough. 

Some species of centipedes give birth to live young.  Eggs are usually laid in Spring after the female has come out of its sheltered home and warmed up. 

Millipedes lay their eggs in the soil. 

What plants do centipedes and millipedes rely on?

As you have read above, millipedes rely totally on the fallen leaves and rotting branches and logs of the bush, beach or forest.  They could not survive without them.  

Centipedes eat caterpillars that have eaten plants and leaves so they to gain some of the nutrients from the plants and leaves. 

Both centipedes and millipedes make their homes in plant material for shelter and protection. 

Belive it or Not

This is where you decide if this is true or not; 
Over 95% of all creatures on earth are invertebrates (have no spine like centipedes and millipedes)

This centipede was found in my garden and was only a few millimetres long.  This is magnified 60x

This centipede was seen on a log in the Tuart forest in Busselton in August.

 Bengendore Park off Albany Hwy Armadale in June and I also saw a lot of introduced millipedes here.

Some were out on the path some were under a tibia bone and others were at the base of this beautiful bright orange fungi.   Go to our Hotspots Bengendore Park to see more interesting things about this place

If a Millipede feels threatened by an animal trying to pick it up it will coil into a ball, as seen here, at Ellis Brook in Perth.

You can also see the spiracles (look like dots) on this millipede.  These spiracles allows the oxygen to enter directly into the insects tissues.  (its different for spiders that have book lungs).

UPDATE!!!

At Ellisbrooke Reserve, off the Tonkin Highway, we came across all of these millipedes.
  There were around 90 of them, nearly all were dead, but they were all still intact. 

 If the temperature does not suit them they will simply burrow in somewhere warm and snug until it does suit them.

The Black Portuguese millipede Ommatoiulus moreletii is in Western Australia and is becoming a pest in some areas.  I have seen them eating many different types of fungi in WA as seen here under a Bolete fungi growing in Roleystone, Perth.  They invade homes all through the hills areas and can eat the carpet fibres, vegy seedlings and clothes.  Go here to for more information on these pest millipedes http://www.csiro.au/resources/ps1rs.html

Update:

This centipede is huge. It is called the Common centipede Scolopendra morsitans.  It moves fairly fast too.  This one was seen at Rottnest Island, near the coast at night, in March.  And I have seen large centipedes in the arid regions of the Pilbara and Tanami Desert, and at Lane Pool Reserve at Nanga Mill in the southwest of Western Australia.

This large centipede was seen at Lane Poole Reserve near Nanga Mill in November.  We also saw Tawny Frogmouths eating this species of centipede that night.

Photograph by Mary Heslen

You can go here to find more sites on centipedes and millipedes of Australia.

And we used the text; 
"Centipedes and Millipedes" by Theresa Greenaway and Photographs by Chris Fairclough.

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