It’s about 1" long, dark brown, and kind of rubbery in consistency. As you can see from the bottom of the paper towel, some of it does rub off.
Initially I thought it was a small, skinny wayward cat poop, since we have several cats and they occasionally (rarely) will leave a token poop outside the litterbox. However, sniffing it revealed that it has no smell whatsoever. I have never encountered a cat doot that didn’t smell at least a little bit bad, even if it’s old and dried, and this thing was fresh.
It didn’t appear to be alive when I found it, nor did it look like a dead creature of some sort, but I can’t be certain. Could it be some kind of slug?
I found it a short distance inside the front door. It’s been raining a lot lately, so it could be something we tracked in, I suppose.
The cats didn’t seem overly interested in checking it out.
As far as I know, aside from the spouse, myself, our cats, and a crested gecko who’s confined to a cage upstairs, there are no other poop-capable creatures living in our house.
Any thoughts on what this mystery object might be?
I suggest that it is a chrysalis, That is one of the larval stages of various insect groups. Perhaps you can google “insect chrysalis” and find a match. The photo that is supplied doesn’t show enough detail for me to give much more specific help.
Definitely not a pepper (we don’t have any in the house) and definitely not desiccated. It was quite supple and rubbery when I found it this morning. It’s starting to dry out now.
It looks like a desiccated slug to me. Having lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve seen those before. If you look carefully on the floor can you see a dried up slime trail leading to where it was?
Imported into Photoshop, zoomed in on and lightened, I’m thinking, “slug”. It seems flat on one side. It seems there’s a “foot fringe” and possibly a mantle. It even seems like there are multiple discs on the end, where the stalks would have been attached.
