[5][6] This centipede is also one of only a few species in this family to exhibit any variation in leg number among specimens.

[9] He based the original description of this species on a female holotype with 63 pairs of legs found on the island of Kyushu in Japan.

[3] In 1895, the British zoologist Reginald I. Pocock described M. mirandus as a new species with 65 pairs of legs.

[10] These syntypes were found in Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and are deposited in the Natural History Museum in London.

[11][3] Until 2007, authorities considered M. japonicus, M. mirandus, and M. fenestratus to be three separate species, distinguishing M. mirandus from M. japonicus based on leg number and the presumed absence of variation in leg number within species in the family Mecistocephalidae.

[12] The Italian biologists Marco Uliana, Lucio Bonato, and Alessandro Minelli examined four adult specimens (two males and two females) with 65 leg pairs, including the M. mirandus syntypes, and twelve specimens with 63 leg pairs, including both sexes.

Noting the overlapping geographic distributions of these species, Uliana, Bonato, and Minelli concluded in 2007 that both M. fenestratus and M. mirandus are junior synonyms of M.

[3] Authorities now deem these two names to be synonyms for M. japonicus,[2] but some continue to list these two as valid species.

[16] The species M. diversisternus features 57 or 59 pairs of legs and is also found from Honshu to Taiwan, including Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Ryukyu Islands.

For example, like other centipedes in the same genus, this species features an elongated head with spicula and second maxillae ending in claws.