CLOSED: Gross story with gross insects!

Okay, before anyone judges me, yes I smoke cigarettes, but that is pertinent to this story. I was out working in the backyard today, and was about to clean out this NASTY bucket that I throw my cigarette butts in. I keep water in it to make sure they are out. Well, after not cleaning it out in probably a year (I know this is gross), the water and old butts are VERY disgusting. Well, then I saw this thing crawling around on top of the cigarette butts. Then I saw another one, so I know these things have to be living in this bucket. They look like a strange caterpillar with a long tail, so my guess is it is a larvae of some sort. ANY help would be appreciated, everyone I have showed them too is stumped. Anyways, here are the ugly little buggers.

underside

WOAH! If nicotine grows something like that- what else has to be said !!!

Don't know but wouldn't surprise me if those things were in the cigarette butt. If snakes and mice and everything else can be harvested with the tobacco ---why not bugs?

Maybe it is some kind of tobacco critter.

LOL, I was thinking that Jo, Is this my sign to stop smoking?

Missing, I was thinking that too, but the only problem I have with that idea is that they would have had to survive under water.

I really hope someone know what in the heck these things are!

lots of bugs survive under water - I think if these did come from the tobacco/butts that it would have been the most recent.

I feel sure they did not LIVE in the cigs before smoking, but arrived to 'feast' on the nice tobacco compost.
Maybe the tail is an air tube. Mosquito larvae live in water but they connect their end to the surface for air.

Oh, and just so yall know, these things are about an 1 1/2" long, NOT including their tail/air tube.

I have a feeling, you're going to get yourself a bucket of sand to snuff them in, or something, anything but seeing those again. ! grin

LOL I have already been looking at the butt-out cigarette dispensers online!

These are larvae of a fly in the family Syrphidae; they are harmless scavengers on decomposing organic matter. Probably because of their long breathing tube, they commonly are called rat-tailed maggots. See http://tinyurl.com/4b6kn7l
for more information.

Nasty, nasty critters!

Not nasty at all; just one of Nature's natural recyclers....

Thanks so much Suunto, I had a feeling that if anyone was going to be able to answer this ii was you. So be honest, did I stump you at all, or did you know right off hand what it was? LOL

These are pretty much unmistakeable; especially given the environment in which you found them...

I had thought that tobacco tea would kill any bug. ? Does it kill bugs at all?

Nicotine in itself is very effective insecticide (look up Blackleaf 40), as well as being quite toxic to mammals such as ourselves. It may be that (a) levels in the 'soup' were insufficient for a lethal effect and/or these larvae are unusually tolerant to it. They do occur in very heavily polluted situations...

Aahh, just a bunch of butts in a big-ol' bucket wouldn't be a strong enough solution. OK, I was worried that I had totally dis-remembered something!

wow, what an amazing tail, er, tale! lol