Creepy Crawlies

[T_Dog]

The better half called me outside the other day to show me what was crawling across our patio. This is a mass of hundreds of some kind of larvae going slowly forward. Each one is about a cm long with a fairly high "eeeeww" factor. We got them to crawl onto a piece of paper and as soon as I picked it up, they all turned as rigid as a stick! Needless to say, I took them a long ways from the house before I let them go, hoping the birds might help out. Does anyone know what these things will turn into? Whatever they are, I am glad we saw them before they set up camp inside the house.

[F1fanatic]

Sorry, can't help - but what the hell!

[T_Dog]

Sorry, can't help - but what the hell!

Agreed! There are a lot of weird critters in Thailand but I hope we don't see any more like this. I can take the snakes and bloating puffer toads but this thing was the stuff of nightmares.

[wannascuba]

http://www.flickr.co...ama/3590306247/

dark-winged fungus gnat larvae

migration - the entire strip of moving larvae was about 2 ft long.

Comments and faves

(39 months ago)

these were on my carport.. in fact i notice them most every spring here.

www.buginfo.com/article.cfm?id=83 rel="nofollow says this:

"One very strange phenomenon that happens only rarely, but perhaps you would be the one to stumble upon it, is a mass migration of the larvae of fungus gnats. This may happen when some area of the soil is just perfect for the development of large numbers of the fungus gnat larvae, and some stimulus then causes them to migrate out in a massive stream of hundreds or thousands of larvae, all moving along like a tiny river. It is thought this could coincide with the larvae reaching their mature stage and needing to find a drier area to pupate, but the exact reason is not known. When this is seen the larvae are sometimes referred to, incorrectly, as "army worms", because of this uniform march. However, true armyworms are moth larvae that feed on plants, and are unrelated to these fly larvae.

Edited August 13, 2012 by wannascuba

[Beetlejuice]

Me too, never seen anything like those before.

They appear to be some sort of slug, but really not sure.

[SimonD]

Did you check around for any crashed spaceships?

[Chonburiram]

Thanks for posting, amazing, never seen before!

[chinnotes]

[T_Dog]

Another critter identified. Thanks everyone.

[Traxster]

Wot.....no vid-clip ??

C'mon guys this is the digital age.

Eveything gets videoeded....

.The new mantra is.........

'if it moves.........video it '

Thanks for the pics anyway.......

[T_Dog]

Wot.....no vid-clip ??

C'mon guys this is the digital age.

Eveything gets videoeded....

.The new mantra is.........

'if it moves.........video it '

Thanks for the pics anyway.......

If you can only connect to the digital age with GSM EDGE, video uploads are out of the question! Would love to have done a macro lens video of the head end of that thing coming on!