| abstract | - Most species must mate to reproduce. The male usually places a sperm packet in a web on the ground. He then coaxes the female to the web by tapping her back legs with his antennae. This courtship may last for hours. Eventually the rear of her body comes into contact with the web and she takes the packet into her reproductive organs. A few kinds of centipedes are capable of parthenogenesis (PAR-thuh-no-JEH-nuh-sihs), where the young develop from unfertilized eggs. Only females are produced by this method of reproduction.
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