#burtlederp

Written 9 June 2020; Thanks to being the main media I watched when I was somewhat younger than now, NCIS is my default world setting for new OCs. Pretty much all OCs start out as fan OCs as a technicality. To avoid... some of that, I have begun slowly formulating my own version of the NCIS baseline. Faust is Gibbs, basically. This situation is your run-of-the-mill captive-torture scene, cutting off before it even gets started, really. Shame. No TWs even necessary.

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Faust didn't know Elias very well--he could even go so far as to say he didn't know Elias at all--but he knew that Elias didn't deserve this. The young man did not deserve to have the rough fingers of their captor digging into his jaw, forcing his wide, fearful green eyes meet Faust's icy grey, he knew Elias didn't deserve to have his head tossed by the captor, he knew Elias didn't deserve to be in this situation. Elias was just some kid, an agent in name only, he didn't ever even pay much attention to cases unless they actually needed him--he shouldn't be here.

"Now, let me guess..." Their captor circled around them like a hungry lion circling a gazelle. "You don't know anything." A finger jabbed Elias in the head, and the young man flinched away, barely swallowing a whimper.

So centipedes and millipedes both belong to the subphylum Myriapoda, which means 10,000 feet. Wouldn’t it be cute of they had that many? Tragically they don’t. More about that later.

There are about 8,000 known species of centipedes worldwide and 12,000 described species of millipedes, but some scientists estimate there could be as many as 80,000. Holy cow, that’s a lot of millipede friends.

As for telling them apart there are a few different ways! If you turn over a rock or whatever and it quickly runs away, it’s probably a centipede.Centipedes are mostly predators so they need to be faster to catch their prey. A millipede will likely curl up and pretend to be dead or slowly walk away. They eat decaying plant matter so they can take their sweet time getting around. Flatback millipedes look more like centipedes, but they still move pretty slowly.

Here’s a cool picture of a rolled up millipede!

Photo by Andreas Kay

Another way to tell them apart is by taking a look at the legs! Millipedes belong to the class Diplopoda, which means double foot. This is because they have two pairs of legs on each of their body segments. Here’s a photo where you can clearly see that:

Greenhouse millipede photo by thomasbarbin

Speaking of legs, the record number of legs on a millipede is 750! That’s way more than usual, though. Most have under 100. Centipedes have on average 35 pairs of legs.

And centipedes have just one pair of legs per body segment! As seen here:

Cameroon flagtail by Frupus

Another difference is that many centipedes are venomous! Centipedes are in the class Chilopoda, which means lip foot. That name refers to their modified foremost front legs that look like mouthparts and are tipped with venomous claws they use to subdue prey. This is why centipedes should be handled carefully or not at all - they can pinch you, which can be painful, although their venom isn’t harmful to people.

Here’s a great photo of the modified front legs on a house centipede:

Photo by Nicky Bay

Rather than using venom as a defense like centipedes, millipedes often discharge and gross-smelling or tasting liquid to deter predators. Some of the chemical compounds they can emit include things like hydrogen cyanide, hydrochloric acid, and others that can cause chemical burns. Yikes!

I’ve probably rambled enough but I’d like to throw out an honorable mention to pseudocentipedes (Class: Symphyla) who are also in Myriapoda but are smaller, non-venomous, don’t have eyes, and are only distantly related to centipedes. They live in soil and adults have twelve pairs of legs. They look like this:

thank you all so much! 🤍 (never apologize for spamming my notifs lol) i’m really glad you all enjoy my comic, even those who aren’t in the fandom.