“Marble” eggs of mysterious creatures

At first glance, this looks like a scattering of marble balls, but if you look closely, you will notice a long, slippery body inside each transparent sphere.

Yes, yes, we know what you thought. The great Cthulhu came out of his hibernation, laid his eggs and is now ready to plunge all of humanity into the abyss of madness, while his descendants feast on the squares of the new R’leh …

In fact, everything is not so scary. These tiny lumps, similar to polished marble balls, were laid down by a worm (also known as a “legless amphibian”) belonging to the family Chikilidae. These are amazing creatures that with age resemble not either snakes without skin, or fat oats of enormous size — and this is despite the fact that they are in fact close relatives of salamanders.

Worms have eyes, but they cannot boast of good vision. Most of the time they spend under the ground, but the shell of the eggs at the same time perfectly reflects sunlight (maybe it helps parents to better distinguish from in the semi-darkness). Females nest up to 2−3 months, and so jealously guard the offspring, that they may not eat anything all this time.

By the way, if you look closely, you can see that inside the eggs are miniature copies of adult animals. There are no larvae as such; they very quickly gain weight and leave the house to produce their own offspring.

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