Kate Spencer wrote:


Can you give a better description of the animal? What colour is it?
How long/wide? Does it have legs or claws? How many body segments (3 -
10 - or many)?

If you mean the fat whitish grubs from one to three inches long that
curl into a ring and have six orange claws, then those are beetle
larvae and they certainly are laid in the soil as an egg. They bite
too (check out the mouthparts)!

--
Trish Brown {|:-}

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Yes, that's the one, curls up into a ball, whitish gray and fat,
obviously, as its been very well fed :-)

How can I prevent this happening again, if at all.

Thanks, Kate

You can get various solutions for 'curl grubs' or 'lawn grubs' at
nurseries. I hate using poisons in my garden and just leave them for
the magpies to dig up. In your case, repotting would probably fix the
problem. ;-D

--
Trish Brown {|:-}

Newcastle, NSW, Australia