A millipede is a long, thin creature with a segmented body and dozens (or even hundreds) of tiny legs. Despite its name, no millipede actually has a thousand legs. Most have between 80 and 400 legs, with two pairs attached to most body segments.

Millipedes live in damp places like under logs, in leaf piles, or beneath rocks, where they eat decaying plants and help break down dead leaves into soil. They move slowly in a wavelike motion as their many legs work together, looking like a ripple flowing down their body. When threatened, millipedes curl into a tight spiral to protect their soft underside, and some types release a smelly liquid that keeps predators away.

People sometimes confuse millipedes with centipedes, but they're quite different. Centipedes are predators with venomous fangs and one pair of legs per segment, while millipedes are gentle decomposers with two pairs of legs per segment. If you see one crawling slowly across the ground, it's probably a harmless millipede just looking for its next meal of rotting leaves.