“Does anyone know what this is?” is all this reader asks about the strange, lobster-shaped organism pictured below. We have never seen anything like it, and it is not particularly worm-like in appearance: this, in conjunction with the lack of context, makes it impossible for us to identify this creature. We also do not know what concerns we could address, since our reader did not make any known to us. For that reason, we will simply do a quick overview of some information that may prove helpful.

Most importantly, since this is an unknown organism, our first piece of advice is to not touch it. Making skin-to-skin contact with unknown creatures can cause allergic reactions, not to mention that it could be capable of secreting toxic fluids, stinging and injecting venom, and/or biting. We also should mention that our reader sent in two other pictures of two different, distinct-looking organisms. This advice applies to those as well.

With this in mind, we advise that our reader scoop the organisms onto a dustpan using a tool and then move them outside. Alternatively, if our reader is pressed to know exactly what these creatures are, then she can scoop them into a container with air holes and take them to her local county extension office, or put various types of food (different types of organic waste, eg: leaves, fruit, fur/hair) in the container and wait to see what it grows into.

Now, if our reader is concerned about her health, we recommend consulting a medical professional: specifically, a medical parasitologist. They specialize in identifying and treating cases of organisms negatively affecting one’s health. To find one, our reader can do one or more of the following:
1) Search for a medical parasitologist in her area using this directory of medical parasitology consultants: https://www.astmh.org/for-astmh-members/clinical-consultants-directory.
2) Search for a local parasitologist by doing a Google search for “medical parasitologist (name of the closest big city)” or “tropical medicine specialist (name of the closest big city)”.
3) Get in touch with Dr. Omar Amin at the Parasitology Center at https://www.parasitetesting.com.

In conclusion, we do not know what the creatures our reader photographed are. We hope nonetheless that something in this article proves helpful, and we wish her the very best.

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