Talk:Centipede

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Source check on even number of pairs of legs

The first paragraph of this article says "Except for one species having 96 legs (48 pair), centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs—for example, 15 or 17 pair (30 or 34 legs)." But the source cited says "Within the Geophilomorpha, this means that, while almost all odd numbers of segments from the 27 minimum to the 191 maximum can be found in one or more species, no even number has ever been found, with the exception of a single specimen of Strigamia maritima that had 48 leg-bearing segments." (Emphasis mine). This is a huge error and I have corrected it but it's a bit scary that such a big misconception could have been there! There was also another problem in the previous sentence claiming that there were centipedes with under 20 legs - the cited source states that the minimum is 27 segments, or 54 legs that is the minimum.

Actually the more I think about it, the source could have meant that Geophilomorpha, not all centipedes, have 27 segment minimum. More research on this is required.

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.253.38.43 (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC) 

The Centipede in the first PICTURE at the Wiki page seems to have exactly 30 legs. -- SwiftFast (talk) 09:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

My previous comment can be ignored. I was confused. -- SwiftFast (talk) 09:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Eating centipedes

There should be some mention of centipedes in culinary use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.249.41.89 (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Red links.

Shouldn't someone clean up the red links? Scientific Alan 2 (talk) 02:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm assured by The Men Who Know that redlinks to taxa are good things, as taxa (if real) are certainly notable, and the redlinks spur us to fill in the gaps. FWIW I've tried to avoid them by linking to e.g. parent taxa which did exist, only to have it pointed out this could be misleading... so the correct fix is to add the missing articles. So, since you care about it, you know what to do! Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Telson article makes no mention of centipedes or their taxonomical branch

Since I don't know enough to expand the telson article, i have removed the link to it, which speaks only of the term with regard to other branches in Arthropoda. --Dhugot (talk) 05:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I have expanded the article telson to include centipedes and millipedes.--Animalparty-- (talk) 17:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Poorly phrased

This part:

Centipedes have an odd number of pairs of legs (with one exception[1]), e.g. 15 or 17 pairs of legs (30 or 34 legs).[2][3] Therefore, there is no centipede with exactly 100 legs

Last I checked, 25 was an odd number. So saying there are no centipedes with exactly 100 legs because of odd pairs makes no sense. Instead, just say there are no centipedes with 100 legs exactly. Actually, that's the edit I'm going to make. Graidan (talk) 13:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Centipedes template

I removed the Centipede nav template for the time being since all the links redirect to the same page, it seemed a bit premature. --Animalparty-- (talk) 06:10, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Question 2

Is it true that nonvenomous centipedes exist? if yes which kind of centipedes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.186.6.124 (talk) 01:15, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

No, as predators, all species of centipedes are venemous.[1],[2] Edward-Woodrow (talk) 23:39, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Orders of centipedes into Centipede

Unnecessary content split. Material on Orders of centipedes was previously covered easily in Centipede. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:18, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose: It was split out because the material wasn't appropriate here - why should an article on a class go into detail on lower-level taxa - obviously not its job. Each order is certainly notable, and it would be desirable to have an article on each one; until then, the list gives them a decent home, and perhaps also an incentive for the articles to be created and filled out with the detail they certainly deserve. That detail obviously wouldn't be appropriate here, any more than having them here was. I'll note in passing, pace WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, that Millipede is very sensibly served by List of millipede families, so there is certainly precedent within the Myriapoda for organising taxonomic information decently. As for having the material here in this article, it's at best a poorly-structured (and poorly-cited) list, somewhat off-topic; at worst, a total distraction from the article's purpose, coverage of the group as a whole. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:38, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose: It makes sense to have content on the orders, either in separate articles or collected on one page such as Orders of centipedes, separate from the Centipede article. I would personally favour separate articles for each order, but still prefer a seperate Orders of centipedes article over having the information mashed in to the Centipede article.

Edward-Woodrow (talk) 21:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - heavy taxonomy related content is regularly split out of general overview articles.--Kevmin § 21:04, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: while there are taxonomic lists articles like List of millipede families, List of birds, and List of arthropod orders and devoted taxonomy articles like Dinosaur classification and Mammal classification that cover various competing schemes or hypotheses, Orders of centipedes seems like an outlier on Wikipedia. It's not a list article, there are only 5 centipede orders (all five are currently redirects, e.g. Lithobiomorpha), and there are no conflicting/parallel classification schemes (at least at the ordinal level) in modern usage. Wouldn't it make more sense to succinctly summarize the five orders at Centipede, and defer more detailed ordinal content to stand-alone articles for each order? --Animalparty! (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  • Comment: Do we all agree that individual articles for each order are desirable? —Edward-Woodrow (talk) 23:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I think there is ample precedence for treating major taxonomic units discretely. I certainly don't think every clade or taxonomic node warrants its own article (the stub Pleurostigmomorpha is extraneous and probably could be better discussed in a parent article, similar to how Dignatha and Progoneata are treated at Myriapoda). Combined articles make more sense when there is a dearth of content for each subsidiary taxa, such that Wikipedia doesn't slide further into a mass of permanent stubs saying no more than "X is a species of Y described by Johnson in 1850." All 3 species of Floridobolus for example are treated under the same article, since only 1 species has significant literature beyond initial description. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:08, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Er, they don't belong. You would think it very odd, aka ridiculous, if the article on the class Birds for no obvious reason contained a list if sections detailing the attributes of the individual Orders of Hawks, Seagulls, Owls, Passerines, Cuckoos, etc. Subtopics, each for their separate articles, or perhaps, um, a list. This list of Centipede Orders, by the way, already has substantial content, and could plainly be expanded with drawings and photographs and accounts of their distinct anatomies, habitats, distributions and so on. They don't belong in the Centipede article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:22, 20 November 2022 (UTC)