The creature scared a resident of Australia

A Reddit user was "scared" by an "alien" animal they found at home.

An Australian user of the social network said that at first he thought that the creature they noticed at the back door was a piece of bark or a bunch of leaves.

But, watching the find, they noticed the movement of the animal.

"I just saw this alien creature outside my back door, it's moving, so it's alive," they wrote, sharing a photo of the creepy creature. A handle has been added for the scale. Google found a dehydrated grasshopper, but it doesn't look like it at all. Please help me identify if I should burn down my house? I was scared when I saw his head. I thought it might attach, but it's moving very slowly."

Other Australians were quick to comment on the post – and despite the country's famously diverse wildlife, no one seemed to know what kind of creature it was.

"Oh my God, I have one at home too, and I keep wondering what the fuck it really was," they wrote. "Mine looks like an innocent piece of bark until you see how it moves, it's terrible."

Initially, this creature stirred up the Internet, but soon the animal was identified as a moth caterpillar.

These insects are common on the east coast of Australia and are known to build their own mobile homes and spend most of their lives in the form of caterpillars.

And although they can look pretty creepy, scaly moth caterpillars are not considered a threat to humans and feed mainly on plants and lichens or hunt for food in ant nests, depending on their species.

Describing this animal, the Australian Museum said:

"Caterpillars that build their own mobile home can often be seen attached to fences and walls in urban environments.

Cup moth, bag moth, or bagworms are the names given to a group of moths whose caterpillars build mobile homes out of silk, usually attaching plant material, detritus, or grains of sand to the outside. The scaly Saunders moth first attaches leaves, and then short twigs arranged lengthwise.

Cup moths spend most of their lives as caterpillars, at the larval stage, which in some species can last up to one or two years. After construction, the female caterpillars never leave their cases."