EGGS AND YOUNG
Centipedes exhibit both "epimorphic" and "anamorphic" growth and development. In the epimorphic orders the eggs and early post-embryonic stadia are brooded by females. In the anamorphic orders, eggs are laid singly and not brooded.

Millipedes exhibit anamorphic development, hatching form the egg usually as legless forms and then molting into stadium I with six segments and three pairs of legs. At the posterior end there are usually one or more legless segments that become leg-bearing at the following molt. Brooding of the eggs and young only occurs in the orders Platydesmida and Stemmiulida.

FEEDING
Centipedes are almost exclusively carnivorous and feed on a variety of smaller organisms that are seized by the "poison claws" and killed by the venom; occasionally, some chilopods feed on plants. The large scolopendromorphs can capture and eat small vertebrates, like frogs, toads, snakes, sparrows and other small birds, and mice.

Millipedes are "phytosaprophagous" and feed on decaying plant material. A few species occasionally can be carnivorous. They ingest material as they encounter it, extract the nutrients, and pass the rest. Exceptions include species with "sucking" mouthparts (long, tubular "beaks"); there is also a semiaquatic cave species in Italy whose mouthparts are modified to remove organic, clay, and limestone particles from the substrates of rivulets and moist surface of banks.

PREDATION
Centipede predators include beetles, spiders, salamanders, scorpions, snakes, monitor lizards, a few birds, several mammals (certain bats, shrews, rats, mongooses, and small cats and foxes), and occasionally other centipedes.

Millipede predators include a variety of invertebrates, particularly glowworm beetle larvae, and such vertebrates as hedgehogs, shrews, frogs, turtles and box terrapins, and the African mongoose. Some African beetles bury millipede carcasses.