Sorry I accidentally deleted my last post. I appreciate the answers the two people gave.

This is some big larva I found and the head looks centipede-ish but the body is short and fat with less legs.

I went through my images and found an old photo of a beetle that was on my screen door. Maybe it's a larva for one of these?

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[–] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That is the larvae of a some member of the Scarabaeoidea family.

Being German the first thing that comes to mind is the Cockchafer (Maikäfer).

The friend you have there looks like it could be a member of that family so it's possible that's the larva form. (But I'm no beetle expert)

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hopefully the Cock Chafer doesn't get its name from its activity

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Last night there was a post about this. According to the post, at the time of naming "cock" was a word referring to size and "chafer" is the type of bug.

    I did not fact check this, but it is an explanation I find preferable to the alternative.

    edit: The name "cockchafer" derives from the late-17th-century usage of "cock" (in the sense of expressing size or vigour) + "chafer" which simply means an insect of this type, referring to its propensity for gnawing and damaging plants.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    possibly a cutworm—they are capable of devouring a huge amount of foliage in a very short time

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_chafer

    In Germany you'll find tons of larvae from that beetle, which look like the one you posted . They are usually "benign".

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That looks like a cutworm to me, and if there's one that big, there should be more, some shallow digging should bring out more. Any plants just randomly dying and falling over?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I had commented on the original post saying I called these cutworms as a kid.

    I remember seeing them around the compost piles along with some yellow and brown/orange beetles.

    Always assumed these cutworms turned into the beetles because they could be found inside these little hard mud pods and sometimes you'd find them in a larval state.

    Just looked it up, yeah... fruit chafer beetle in South Africa ( a few different names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachnoda_sinuata) and they start off as these cutworms.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    That's how I know them as well, around compost heaps these yellow and black beetles hover, and then you find those guys in the ground, but I am south African so that might be why I know them as cutworms

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Interesting, cutworms seems to be a term used for various catipillar type larva, though none of the pictures I saw look to have the front 6 legs from my photo

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'll have to go back and dig some more. This guy was under dead leaves but ontop of the soil. Seemed to be a part of the yard that stays shaded throughout the day and retained some moisture.

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