Most centipedes are predaceous, feeding mainly on insects. The centipedes, as a group, are considered beneficial. Centipedes are usually brownish, flattened, elongate animals, having many body segments with one pair of legs per segment.
Centipedes are wormlike in form, with a distinct head that possesses a pair of antennae.
The legs are conspicuous, numbering from 15 to 100 pairs. In spite of the large number of walking appendages, centipedes crawl very rapidly. The jaws of the smaller species normally cannot easily penetrate human skin. However, even the house centipede can pierce the skin and cause severe pain with some swelling at the site of the bite. The larger centipedes found in the southern states cannot inject enough poison to be dangerous to humans, although their strong jaws may tear the skin.