All their shapes retain the green-tinted brown colour, jellylike texture, and immense lidless eyes. The Knids lack visible mouths, but are said to be capable, none the less, of 'biting' their prey. Their normal appearance is a giant egg-shaped body which pulsates and seems to be full of jelly. The Vermicious Knid, described by Wonka, is 'one huge muscle', capable of assuming any shape at will.

Wonka and his Elevator then towed the astronauts back to Earth where the Knids, now linked into a long chain wrapped at one end around the Elevator itself, in the effort to capture it as well, were destroyed in the atmosphere. When the Hotel's staff and astronauts arrive, the Knids devour 24 of the 150-strong crew then pursue them to their shuttle, which they attempt to beat into submission. Wonka and Charlie's family visit the Hotel, shortly before its official opening, the Knids frighten them away. This makes them look like shooting starsĪt the time of the story, the Vermicious Knids have invaded humanity's Space Hotel, recently launched, and established a colony there. The Vermicious Knids, Wonka says, are responsible for leaving the other planets of our Solar System barren, but cannot invade Earth through its denser atmosphere any Knid who tries, is burnt to ashes by friction. The Knids are from planet Vermes, which is 60,000,000 light years away from planet Pluto, but normally travel through space in swarms, land on any planet with a sufficiently-thin atmosphere, and consume any life they find there. A shape-shifting, space-faring, amoeba-like carnivore, the Vermicious Knids are the antagonists of the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Charlie and the big glass elevator