A member of the genus Geophilus has 177 pairs of legs. When a leg is cut off it will regenerate. The body is divided into two parts, the head and a segmented trunk. They breathe through spiracles, holes positioned along the body. Their bite can be painful to a human but not lethal.
Centipedes eat insects, earthworms, spiders, slugs, and other small animals.
She drops the eggs into a hole she digs in the soil. Some centipedes care for their eggs and the hatchlings. About 20 families and 3,000 species of centipedes have been described.