What are these?

[Only]

Hi all,
I woke up this morning to an infestation of what look like some type of larvae on my footpaths and driveway. There are hundreds of them. They're brown and a don't have legs like caterpillars - I have a photo but am not sure how to upload ... I've uploaded it to Gallery Images (I think?) so not sure how to get it from there to here - sorry

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/ar...=127325&cat=31

Trying cutting and pasting the pic link ... hope it works

[diggleken]

Hi only, dont know, in short, but will make a stab before the experts step in - reminds me of Sawfly larvae, which one will depend what plants you have around there, such as flag iris in a pond?
they can be seen in profusion and spread out.
Welcome to WAB!
Cheers
Ken

[Only]

Hi Ken,
Thank you so much for the welcome and the quiock reply.

To be honest, I'm not really a gardener ... well, I have a fairly nice 'ordinary' garden but dont know very much about plants / insects etc and only really chose things on looks and ease of growing so I'm not too sure of names etc

We don't have a pond though so no water plants. We have 'regular' plants like grasses, roses, clematis, lillies etc and both neighbours have evergreen trees on either side of us. We have never had these larvae before. The only thing different this year is that we have put down tarmacadam and put a sealer on our stone footpaths ... but don't think anything like that would attract??

These larvae are trying to 'burrow' everywhere - even into the tarmacadam and any cracks in the grout in the footpath.
To be honset I'm not keen on having them - its nearly impossible to walk and not squish some of them and I'm a but squeamish
It's been a long dry spell here with a fair bit of rain yesterday and its still warm so probably ideal hatching conditions?

Thanks agina for all and any help and hope no one minds me posting - sorry, am not too clued in on all this

[Only]

Well I figured out what they are - cranefly larvae (leatherjackets) ... what I can't figure out is how or why there were so many of them on the footpath tarmacadam near the house - well away from the grassed areas. That and the footpath was powerwashed and sealed just over a week ago so if there were eggs then they were surely washed away so where did these come from? ... Any ideas??