Can anybody id this, please?

[jeremiah]

Found under the last tissue in the box.

What is it, and should I complain to Sainsburys?
The pointed end is the head, unless it moves backwards, and it heads rapidly into the shady part of the box. 2cm long, 0.5cm wide.

[Jason Green]

Evening J,

I would assume it's the larval form of a domestic fly... but the shape, particularly in the first photo, doesn't half remind me of a Scale insect, Coccidae family. See the third photograph on my website - Invertebrate Information | - this was stuck down hard, but when travelling between locations I assume they must be quite mobile. Given where you found it though, I think that's unlikely.

Others I'm sure will have other ideas too!

Take care,

Jason

[jeremiah]

Domestic fly? That big? Yikes!

It's still in its box, by the way, the box is wrapped in clingfilm. I have offered a piece of apple and a piece of catfood but it's ignored both and climbed to the underneath of the lid, I'll leave it until morning and then it will have to take its chances in the garden.

Speaking of scale insects - I have actually watched one move down a tree. It has tiny transparent legs like pins, not very many (probably six!). Very short and widely spread apart for such a wide body. I had to peer very closely sideways to see those. No camera, of course - not that mine would have been any use.

[ChrisR]

I'd say it looks like the larval stage of a beetle. If you can, keep in a box with a tissue and see if it pupates it might emerge as a beetle of some kind and then we'd know a bit more about it. It might be a completely normal, UK species that has crept in there to hibernate or it might be something foreign and quite interesting. Either way it's highly unlikely to cause you any harm in the process

[The Woodman]

It's not the larva of a Tissue or Snout Moth.

You could try feeding it with Sneeze Wort.

Who nose what it is.

[jeremiah]

Woodman - groan!!!....

It's wandering round inside the box again. I'd feed it if I could.

If it wasn't originally in the box, it probably fell in off the ceiling. I have a wasp's nest in the kitchen roof, and some dopy wasps have been crawling in through a little gap round some pipework in the last week or two.

Could it be the larva of some wasp parasite?
I've been through the Gallery here, and googled images of beetle larvae but I haven't seen anything resembling this.

[Teal]

Of the various larval stages it looks like one of the Cassidia species though I have no idea which

[jeremiah]

A couple more photos, in daylight this time.

It was desperate to hide under the bit of compost, so I put it out under some plant debris in a sheltered place.





Teal - "cassida" rather than "cassidia"?
I agree it sort of looks like it, except that in the cassida images on google the head is at the fatter end - this thing's head is at the pointy end.

[Rossco]

I'd say you've found some sort of fly larva. Larvae of the fly genus Fannia are bristly like that, although they're too small. There's also the hairy blow maggot Chrysomya rufifacies. Check out some photos on the web. The tapering shape and the thick dark line at that stretches from just short of the mid-line to the hind end both suggest it's a fly maggot. How it gone in there, I can only imagine.

The way to see for sure is to let it pupate and see what emerges. It looks fully grown, so you shouldn't have to wait too long.

[Teal]

Yeah Jeremiah it should have been Cassida . My fingers evidently got ahead of my brain again!