Who Would Win? Centipede vs. Hornet

What’s that crawling along? It has a lot of legs, and they’re all moving fast. It’s a centipede!

A centipede’s body is made up of segments, or parts. Each segment has one pair of legs.

Some kinds of centipedes have 15 pairs of legs.But other kinds can have 191 pairs of legs! 

The centipede is looking for food. Centipedes eat other living things, like insects and spiders. Bigger kinds of centipedes can eat larger prey, like mice and bats!

Centipedes have a secret weapon. The front pair of their legs is full of venom. That is like poison. The centipede stabs prey with its front legs. The venom makes the prey stop moving. Then the centipede eats it up!

This hornet can eat fruit, but it also eats insects. That’s why it has a sharp stinger with deadly venom in it. Hornets can sting insects to protect themselves.

Hornets don’t usually eat centipedes. But they might sting one if they feel like they are in danger. They can sting many times in a row. Ouch! 

Now the centipede and hornet see each other. They’re going to fight. 

The hornet has an advantage. It can fly. It flies around the centipede. Every so often, it sneaks up and stings one of the centipede’s segments. It hurts the centipede, but the centipede has many segments. The hornet would have to sting many more times to kill the centipede. 

But the centipede has its secret weapon ready. It has a front pair of legs full of venom. The centipede is waiting for the hornet to make a mistake. The hornet flies too close to the centipede’s face.

The centipede wraps all its legs around the hornet. The centipede pins the hornet down. It’s easy to fight a few legs, but how do you fight 75 pairs of legs? It stabs the hornet’s head with its sharp front legs. The venom flows. The hornet can’t move. 

The fight is over. The centipede wins.