Vermicious knid

Vermicious knids are a fictional species of amorphous, shape-shifting monsters that invade the Space Hotel USA in Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", the sequel to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". They are also mentioned in the 1971 feature film adaptation, "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", except on this occasion they are referred to as being one of the species that inhabits Loompaland.

Description

In their natural form, vermicious knids are huge, dark, egg-shaped beings that are quite at home in the vacuum of space. Their homeworld is the planet Vermes, a fictional planet located (as stated in dialogue) 184270000000 miles away from Earth. Their one weak point is that they are show-offs; they cannot resist shaping themselves to spell the one word they know how to spell--"SCRAM"--before they attack.

According to Willy Wonka, numerous sentient alien species that formerly existed have been wiped out by the knids' predations. Wonka claims that the only reason humans have escaped this fate is because the Knids cannot enter Earth's atmosphere without being burned up by friction—despite the fact that among the worlds that have been depopulated by the knids is Venus, which has a substantial atmosphere.

When Nestle created their interpretation of Wonka's world to sell chocolate bars under the name "Wonka", they released a number of downloadable flash games. In all these games, Knids seem to have entered the factory and have the appearance of a flying green blob with a single red eye.

Name

The etymology of the name was not provided by Dahl. Pronunciation of "knid" is said in the book to approximate adding a schwa between the k and nid, or in Dahl's words, "k'nid". Cnidaria is the name of the taxonomic phylum containing stinging aquatic invertebrates such as jellyfish and coral, itself derived from the classical Greek word for nettle, κνιδη. "Vermicious" is a real word, meaning wormlike.

Other appearances

They are mentioned in another of Dahl's books, "James and the Giant Peach", after police see that the peach has landed on the Empire State Building. They are also mentioned in the Dahl's story "The Minpins".