Allotments 4 All

Found some of my ripe strawberries have hole in them with mass of horrible creepy little caterpillars spilling out and waving around - quite gross. Any idea what they might be and where they came from?

Possibly strawberry sawfly larvae, they tend to reduce the leaves to skeletons.

I don't think they start life in the fruit. Wondering if they may be centipede or millipede larvae. Have been trying to trace on Google but no luck.

Dunno... but I bet the chickens love them...  :)

I've got some too! Horrible things, I can't see them very well without my glasses on, so I will be very careful now when eating a few straight off the plants. Have to take glasses to the allotment in future! I wonder how many I have eaten  :-X

I didn't bother to put straw down this year, so wondered if they are in the soil and climb up onto ripe strawberries.

Emailed photo to Natural History Museum bug id forum. Very quick reply - they are spotted snake millipedes and the dry weather has caused the problem - probably lost 20/25% of crop.  There is a related entry on A4A - just search for snake millipedes.