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Thick Multi-colored "Worm" with Strange Mechanical Noises


ynb

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Hello,

When I was very young (decades ago) I came across the strangest creature I'd ever seen.
It was in Florida under a very old tree (50+ years) and at sundown.
It appeared to be some sort of worm based on it's shape, but I don't know if that's what it really was.
I remember that it was about 1.5 inches thick, about 4 inches long, and had red and blue in its body. It may have had other colors, but it was so long ago that I can't recall.

I only found it because of the noise it was making - every time it moved it seemed to make this odd mechanical cranking noise. It wasn't quick either, the sounds were deliberate like gears grinding against each other. I wish I could describe it better - the sound is one of the most vivid things in my memory about it.

Also, I should mention that when it moved it was moving probably around 1/4th of it's body at a time (in the same way you would turn your head but not the rest of your body).
It reacted every time I nudged it with my toy-sized shovel (one you'd see a kid with in a sandbox).
Anyways, being a small child I thought it was amazing and decided to put it in a plastic jar. I poked holes in the top of the jar (was a plastic cap).
The next morning, I found the worm dead in the jar.

There was a large hole in the center of it (as if it had burst apart) and hundreds of tiny white maggots were crawling around in the container, as well as still pouring out of the "worm".

Probably about a decade later I mentioned the story to my parents, who had no recollection of the events (even though I remember them disposing of the worm for me). They suggested that I had dreamed the whole thing (I don't know how, as such a small child, I could have dreamed of the maggots bursting from the creature; I had never seen a maggot before then).
I'm wondering if any of you could help me figure out what I had found.
I apologize for the lack of pictures - this incident happened very long ago and pops into my head every now and then.

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cool story, funny how we remember some things so vividly from when we were kids and can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

 

I haven't seen any worms that fit that description, I do remember as a kid being amazed , listening at night to the Gypsy Moth caterpillars crunching on the leaves of the trees. Just a thought maybe the noise was the maggots devouring the dead worm from the inside out. The movement was the maggots and not the worm

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natalia_la_loca

It sounds like a nightmare. But there are parasitic insects that lay their eggs in caterpillars, and the larvae feed on the living caterpillar until there is nothing left but a bag of skin. Bon appetit!

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You should Google catepillars and see if a picture of one matches your memory. I even found an ID guide. I agree with Natalia and Dadummy that the catepillar was parasitized by some fly that laid its eggs in it to make the maggots. I can attest to the fact that the munching sound of a bunch of maggots is unfortunately very audible.

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cool story, funny how we remember some things so vividly from when we were kids and can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

 

I haven't seen any worms that fit that description, I do remember as a kid being amazed , listening at night to the Gypsy Moth caterpillars crunching on the leaves of the trees. Just a thought maybe the noise was the maggots devouring the dead worm from the inside out. The movement was the maggots and not the worm

Yes that sounds plausible - the sound was the maggots eating the worm. Their presence (maybe coupled with inflamation of the worm's innards) I suppose may also explain why the worm was so thick & bloated.

 

It sounds like a nightmare. But there are parasitic insects that lay their eggs in caterpillars, and the larvae feed on the living caterpillar until there is nothing left but a bag of skin. Bon appetit!

On the note of it being a nightmare: I wasn't scared or frightened; I was puzzled by it. If I was afraid I wouldn't have captured it and put it in a jar. The noise it was making just didn't "fit" with what I was seeing.

The death of the worm was a big disappointment to me; at the time I thought it may have been my fault that it died.

 

You should Google catepillars and see if a picture of one matches your memory. I even found an ID guide. I agree with Natalia and Dadummy that the catepillar was parasitized by some fly that laid its eggs in it to make the maggots. I can attest to the fact that the munching sound of a bunch of maggots is unfortunately very audible.

Great idea. After googling "parasitized caterpillar" I found the following image

32137156.lunacaterpillar.jpg

It looked very close to this one in shape and size, but it was multicolored.

Imagine this caterpillar but with half of it being red and half being blue (as in the "head" half and the "tail" half being different colors). There may have been yellow or orange in the middle. It looked banded, but that might have just been part of its pattern (there may have been thin black lines going along it to give it a banded appearance). Also I don't recall seeing any of those white dots on the outside of it or hair, but the hair may have been too difficult to see against the colors of the caterpillar.

 

Well thank you for offering a good explanation. Just about every time I see a worm I think back to that day and the strange noises that came from it.

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I found a caterpillar on my tomato plants last year with eggs on it. I googled and people say there's a kind of bees that lay eggs on worms so the larvae can feed on the worm.

 

There're some fungus that grow in insects and worms too and turn them into literally zombies. They would move to a position high enough and then the fungus will explode from inside, spreading spores over a large area so they can find new hosts.

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