Rise of the bone-eating worms

A monster is awaiting its stories: the bone-eating worm.  Just say that out loud, to yourself, or to a stranger, preferably in the dark.  Then read on:

eyeless, mouthless worms lurk in the dark, settling onto dead animals and sending out green "roots" to devour their bones.

Osedax worms chew into carcass bones, growing watery blossoms from the ossuary. 

There's a Gothic beauty to this horror:

Robert Vrijenhoek... would also like to know how[Osedax worms] manage to find and colonize the bones of dead whales in the vast, pitch-black expanse of the deep seafloor...

(via Paul McCauley, who helpfully suggests we "imagine them growing bigger, and crawling out of the sea...")

Comments

[Steve B]

"imagine them growing bigger, and crawling out of the sea..." and infesting the graveyards and growing big and strong until they are raised by ghouls as pets...

Obviously Osedax worms are the tiny brethren of dholes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhole_%28Cthulhu_Mythos%29

[Bryan Alexander]

Indeed!

But if these are early dhole days (ah, the dhole days of summer), are we seeing emergent Cthulhu phenomena?

[Steve B]

are we seeing emergent Cthulhu phenomena?

We will always be seeing emergent Cthulhu phenomena until He is here.