RALEIGH It looks like blob of wriggling pudding staring out through a single, puckered eye. You can see it caught on camera, clinging to the concrete pipes below Raleigh's Cameron Village: the Sewer Monster. it's really a colony of prehistoric creatures known either as bryozoans or moss animalcules, thousands of wormlike animals, biologists report. Clustered together in a glistening mass, they feed through tentacles on whatever floats past. More common in ponds. Living in a 6-inch sewer main, the clusters of worms are about the size of a golf ball, estimates Ed Buchan, an environmental coordinator with the city. But the video footage, captured with a tiny snakelike camera, makes the monster appear at man-eating size to viewers watching at home. That may explain why a two-minute video tour of the Sewer Monster's lair has spread across the Web like flesh-eating bacteria, prompting nationwide cries of horror and disgust.
“Mystery Life Form in NC Sewer!” read one headline, followed by this comment: “It looks like meat. HEART MEAT!” At Cameron Village on Wednesday evening, visitors were split into two groups: Those who had seen the sewer monster video and been horrified, and those who planned to Google it the minute they had the chance.Maria Schmitt, 21, Jeff Lepley, 21, and Annie Powell, 21, were in the latter camp, but they quickly rectified that using Schmitt's iPhone.
