A cat helped create these mysterious wriggling critters

Moth legs
Moth legs?
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For a while, experts were baffled by these mysterious, wriggling critters which you can see in this woman’s hand. The video has gone viral and there’s lots of speculation about what we are looking at.

The current theory is that a family cat (or perhaps a feral cat?) ate a moth except for the legs. For a reason that I don’t understand, the legs remained active, moving automatically.


Caters News license this video but it can be embedded as is the case here:

My mother found these on the kitchen floor this morning. One is still alive. Anyone know what they are? Nikki is horrified and will have nightmares for weeks!

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Posted by Tim Clerke on Wednesday, January 30, 2019


An Auckland, New Zealand man apparently uploaded the video of what appeared to be strange creatures wriggling in the open hand of his mother. The video has been viewed over 500,000 times, which is extraordinary.

The man’s mother found them on the kitchen floor. An entomology team from Bio Security New Zealand thought that they were the legs of a moth. They suggested that the rest of the moth had been eaten by family cat. This is the current thinking from the experts.

Sarah Tassell, the collection manager of the New Zealand Anthropoid Collection at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research said:

“If you look at the photos you can see that what you are looking at our jointed legs. They are hairy and have some distinctive spines.”

They had thought that they were rat-tailed maggots but the theory has been superseded by the moth leg theory. There are certainly very odd and somewhat creepy. Thankfully, I’m able to write about this because of the speculation that a domestic cat was involved. It gives me the opportunity to put the video on this website!

If the embedded FB video disappears this is a backup:


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3 thoughts on “A cat helped create these mysterious wriggling critters”

  1. Insect legs keep moving when they are acidentally removed from their bodies. This happens quite often, but I do not know the exact reason. Speculating a latent nervous systems reaction and also a survival mechanism. It really bothered me when this happened trying to remove an unwanted insect for many years vin Florida…😑

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