this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] numberfour002@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

A disappointingly large proportion of the general population appears to be unable to tell the difference between centipedes and millipedes. Is it possible that the "centipedes" you saw were actually millipedes? If so, they may have been "fucking", or at least the millipede equivalent of it.

Additionally, it appears that this "fact" is actually wrong (big surprise, huh?). Many species of centipede do have courtship strategies that involve males and females meeting up. The sexes may even employ various forms of physical touch as part of the process. So, it's certainly possible that the critters you saw where centipedes courting each other.

[–] we_avoid_temptation@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 months ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede#/media/File%3AMillipede_centipede_side-by-side.png

Assuming this is actually representative of the difference, it was definitely a pair of centipedes.

I'm not surprised in the least that at a minimum it's more complicated than the meme suggests, and now I've learned far more about centipedes than I ever wanted to. Thanks!

[–] jenny_ball@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

millepedes are gross. centipedes are scary