Velvet worms are adorable caterpillar-y looking things, silently plodding along on stumpy legs in tropical forests around the world. A recently discovered species was so cute, it got a name straight out of Studio Ghibli: Eoperipatus totoros. The species name is an homage to the CatBus in the film My Neighbor Totoro:

“the species is named after the main character of the cartoon movie “My Neighbour Totoro” by Hayao Miyazaki (1988, studio Ghibli), who uses a many-legged animal as a vehicle…”

~Ivo de Sena Oliveira, et al. 2013. A new species of Eoperipatus (Onychophora) from Vietnam reveals novel morphological characters for the South-East Asian Peripatidae. Zoologischer Anzeiger 252 (4): 495–510.

Onychophorans don’t have a hard, rigid exoskeleton like the Arthropods, but are blobby bags with wee little legs with claws at the ends. Hydrostatic pressure allows them to lumber along, slowly, on jointless legs.

Velvet worms are curious slime-spewing enigmas. They are off on their own odd branch of the tree of crawly things called Onychophora. Not worms, not insects, millipedes, centipedes, or slugs. Genetic data suggests that velvet worms are a sister group to insects; that is, they are descended from a common ancestor, but not from each other. Onychophorans were probably stumping along in tiny moss forests 500 million years ago.

Because Onycophorans are soft-bodied and desiccate quickly, they need damp, humid environments to thrive. They like dark soils, rocks, and rotting logs in tropical forests, and are quite difficult to find. Most of the photos in this story are of a closely related species, not the Totoro Velvet Worm; there are only 3 specimens of that species known to date.

I’ve focused on their adorableness, but truth of velvet worms is somewhat less cute. The two little bumps in the image above are actually slime cannons. Onychophorans can’t chase down their prey, but they can ensnare them by spraying sticky goo to trap them. They have a range that Spider-Man would envy.

Once the prey is slimed, the worm waddles up and chows down. Velvet worms also eat any leftover slime, recycling the protein and sugar-rich slime.

In case you are curious, a biologist tried licking some slime in 1874; he reported “the fluid… has a slightly bitter and at the same time slightly astringent taste.” I do not recommend licking any velvet worms you happen to find.

I think this has great potential for a movie:

There is a nice gallery of velvet worm photos by Nicky Bay on Flickr; he kindly gave us permission to reproduce these photos at WIRED.