Vermicious Knid

(pronounced as K'nids)

Knids are sapient, amorphous shape shifters from the planet Vermes that were encountered by Charlie Bucket in the Space Hotel USA, which they had invaded.

Physical Characteristics
In the book, it was described as “an enormous egg balanced on its pointed end”. It was estimated to be “as tall as a big boy and wider than the fattest man”.

They have greenish brown skin which is described to wrinkly and has a wet, shiny appearance to it. Its eyes are said to be found in the widest part of its body which was estimated to be ¾ up from its pointed end; they were described as large and round which were as big as “teacups”. Its eyes where white but had bright red pupils. It is said that it does not have a mouth, ears nor nose.

They are said to be murderous, brutal and vengeful but also show offs. This is one of their defining characteristics and also one of their weaknesses. They are very proud with the way that they can write with their bodies which bought time for Charlie and the others to escape to the Glass Elevator. Proud as they are of how they can write with their body the only word that they can write is "SCRAM".

Biology
The Vermicious Knid is amorphous and it seems that its body is made up of one huge muscle since in the book it was said to be "like a mixture of rubber putty with steel wires inside". Due to the description, they must also have a backbone which is also flexible so that they can manipulate their bodies in any shape they want. Also, they can withstand space but cannot withstand extreme heat which is one of the reasons why they cannot invade the Earth. When they attempt to enter the Earth's atmosphere, they easily burn up because of friction and this is said to be behind the phenomenon of shooting stars.

Habitat
They were originally from the planet Vermes, which was said to be 18,427,000,000,000 miles from Earth. They are said to have invaded Venus and Mars but could not invade the Earth due to intense heat produced when entering the Earth's atmosphere. They are also comfortable in space; this indicates that Vermes is a frozen world of extreme colds.