If you found these terrifying creatures wriggling around your kitchen floor, what would you do? I know that if my wife or I found them, we’d certainly be on the phone with the exterminator the next moment. I would demand the exterminator tell me how these creatures that seem to come from the southern hemisphere or another planet entirely wound up on my floor after paying them for quarterly checkups.
Unfortunately, this scenario happened to one young man and his mother. Tim Clerke (below) decided to film the wriggling creatures and share the video with the internet asking other people to help him identify what they could possibly be. As you can imagine, it was not easy to figure out what the creatures were even for those who might be more exposed to bizarre, creepy crawling things in other parts of the world like Australia or New Zealand.
“My mother found these on the kitchen floor this morning. One is still alive. Does anyone know what they are? Nikki is horrified and will have nightmares for weeks!”
Because Clerke needed the hive mind to get to work on this puzzle, Facebook worked his usual magic and helped connect his video with people who have the knowledge to identify the bizarre creatures. When the post went viral, Clerke found his inbox flooded with answers to his question about what they are.
Not everyone believed the content of the video. Experts from the University of Auckland in New Zealand claimed that what Clerke was showing in the clip was nothing more than an elaborate hoax in a desperate bid to get attention on social media.
While scientists and professors at the New Zealand institution believe it is a hoax, Eric Edwards, a man claiming to be an entomologist, offered his opinion as to what the creatures were. He said they are a creature known as rat-tailed maggots. With a name like that, you know these things are bad news, and that’s about what Eric Edwards told the terrified Clerke and “Nikki.”
According to the internet, rat-tailed maggots are parasites – the kind that can cause some real damage. If these creatures get inside the human body, they can cause gastrointestinal infections that will cause severe, biting pain that can be debilitating. The maggots caused a disease called myiasis, which results when the parasite is feeding off of the host’s body tissue and the intestinal wall.
Fortunately, Clerke and his mother did not find the rat-tailed maggots in the toilet but on the kitchen floor. If they had gotten inside either of them, they might have needed a trip to the hospital to get cured.
While Eric Edwards was confident about his answer, other people offered their own theories.
“Baby rats. Had it happen to us before. They were littered all over the fireplace, floor, etc. Gross.”
While they do resemble rats, this explanation seems rather farfetched.
Another person offered, “Those are miniature bats. Duh!”
Tim Clerke, trying to stoke the conspiracy theorists, said, “I was thinking something more alien.”