List of animals by number of legs

The following is a list of selected animals in order of increasing number of legs, from 0 legs to 653 pairs of legs, the maximum recorded in the animal kingdom.^[1] Each entry provides the relevant taxa up to the rank of phylum. Each entry also provides the common name of the animal. If the relevant taxon includes different animals with different common names, then the entry provides the common name of a familiar example.

If juveniles have fewer legs than adults, then the animal is listed by the number of legs recorded in mature adults. If this number varies among adults within the taxon, then this variation is noted in a comment. In counting legs, this list follows the conventions adopted in the relevant literature. For example, millipedes with gonopods are listed by numbers that exclude leg pairs that become gonopods, but numbers for millipedes with telopods include leg pairs that become telopods.^[2][3][4]

Animals have been selected so that each number from 0 to 55 leg pairs has one example listed. Each of these examples is listed by a number closely associated with the relevant taxon, either because that number is the one most commonly observed in that taxon or because that number is one of only a few recorded for the taxon. Beyond 55 leg pairs, intraspecific variation in leg number increases, and the association between species and any particular number breaks down.^[5][6] Beyond 55 leg pairs, examples are listed only if they represent especially significant maximum numbers (e.g., most legs in the animal kingdom) or exhibit relatively little intraspecific variation in leg number.

This list draws examples from three broad groups of animals: tetrapods (with 0 to 2 leg pairs,^[7][8] providing three examples), velvet worms (with 13 to 43 leg pairs,^[9] providing ten examples), and arthropods (with 3 to 653 leg pairs,^[10][1] providing all the other examples). Four classes of arthropods each provide multiple examples, including sea spiders (adults with 4 to 6 leg pairs,^[11] providing two examples) and pauropods (adults with 8 to 11 leg pairs,^[12] providing four examples), but most of the examples listed are either millipedes (adults with 11 to 653 leg pairs)^[5][1] or centipedes (adults with 15 to 191 leg pairs).^[5] Most of the millipede examples come from two orders, Polydesmida (flat-backed millipedes, providing four examples) and Chordeumatida (sausage millipedes, providing eight examples), each with some variation in leg number among species but little variation within species.^[3] Nearly all of the centipede examples come from only one order, Geophilomorpha (soil centipedes), which exhibits wide variation in leg number among species (from 27 to 191 leg pairs).^[13] Nearly all of the examples from the order Geophilomorpha come from three families of soil centipedes (Mecistocephalidae, Schendylidae, and Geophilidae) that exhibit relatively little intraspecific variation in leg number.^[14][6]