Observations of a Larva

The organism placed in front of me appears to be a larva of some sort and is beige in color. It is in a small, transparent, cylindrical container that has three pieces of what look like wood chips inside. The larva moves along the outer rim of the container through a peristaltic motion and continually walks over these wood chips. The larva has three apparent black spots on the left side of its abdomen towards the end of its body. Upon closer examination, the larva has approximately 13 smaller black dots along each side of its body, corresponding to each of its sections. The larva’s head is brown and moves in space around the container, possibly in an attempt to discern its surroundings. At the tip of the head, the brown region turns into a darker shade. The tail of the larva is the same beige color as the body, although there are two small black dots on the end. When the larva moves, the tail inches forwards first and then the rest of the body moves forward to compensate for the difference, creating a wave-like motion that propels the larva ahead. The larva moves relatively slow around the outside rim but is not limited to this pace. At times, the larva sticks its tail into the air, but does not move it around as much as its head. Perhaps this is another strategy to sense its surroundings. The larva has approximately seven pairs of legs underneath, three pairs in the front half of the body and four pairs in the back half. It is important to note that the middle section of the larva does not have any pairs of legs, this encompasses approximately two of its sections. The front and back legs are different, the front ones are longer and brown while the back ones are shorter and black. The back legs are more stub-like, which could be a trait that helps the larva grip the surface it is moving on since the back end of the body is the first to move forward. This way, the larva can maintain its forward motion and not be moved backwards as a result of the front of the body moving. The longer front legs could be for more of a sensory purpose, they seem to move around a fair amount as the larva moves along the outer rim of the container. Upon closer examination of the top of the larva, it appears slightly translucent. There are two gray lines running on either side inside the larva with a white section in the middle. This discrepancy is more apparent when the larva moves.