What could these creatures be?
I just recently moved into an apartment right beside the Red River here in Winnipeg, Canada. Every time I go out for a smoke at night time, I sit right on the bank of the river. There’s still a lot of debris and dead leaves, and at night I hear things crawling everywhere. At first, I thought it could be mice. Whatever they were, they weren’t coming out from under the leaves, and they weren’t making noise other than moving around. One night I grabbed a flashlight and started looking around. They were definitely scared of the light, and every now and again I’d come across some slimy-lookin’ leaves. Just a trail, not the entire leaf. Anyway, I shined my flaslight on a small pile of leaves and found whatever was crawling around. But I only got a short glimpse of it, as it was very quick to react to the light and shot away. It was small, slimy, and brown. That’s really the only description I can give. It looked like a slug (the head of it, the only part I saw), but it moved waaaaay too fast for it to be a slug, or snail for that matter.
I realize how vague this is, but maybe someone out there has came across the same thing? I’m quite curious to know what they are!

April 20th, 2011 at 2:33 am
Sounds interesting. I think its probably some rodents. It likes to hide in leaves and can swim in the river. As for the slimy part , rodents have lots of oil on their fur and I imagine a wet rodent and be slimy.
Report this comment
April 20th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
those night crawlers as noisy little sons of a gun in the leaf litter. if you notice, there are spots where the leaves are bunched up. if you gentle lift a bunch you find the night crawler hole. so if one night, after you have removed several bunches, and shine a light towards them , you’ll see the crawler. don’t shine the bright light directly at the burrow but keep it off to the side a bit. that way the crawlers don’t scoot away in terror at the monster with the light..and if it has been raining you will have even better luck at seeing them.
Report this comment
April 21st, 2011 at 10:33 am
I agree with markie.. it sounds like you have seen worms at work. They love leaf litter they feed on decomposing organic matter like leaves, and they come out at night. They will immediately slip back into their holes as soon as you shine a light on them. I’ve been hunting for nightcrawlers before, and they are quite fast! You can’t shine the light right on them and you have to stay still for a while before they will pop back out after you scare them away.
Report this comment