Hi,
I'm a grad student living in someone's basement; this critter fell onto my desk a few minutes back -- approx. midnight -- while I was attempting to work on my master's thesis. Thankfully, it landed behind my laptop instead of on my laptop! It has six legs beneath the front few sections of its body. It looks like some kind of beetle larva, but (much like my data) google, flickr, and other searches haven't yielded any further insight. I suspect it made its way over to the finished portion of the basement from the unfinished portion via the cracks in the wall above my desk. Please help identify this so that I can 1) cease attempts to ID it myself, and 2) more accurately describe the incident to my adviser. Many thanks!

PS. Is there any way to keep this alive humanely and long enough to show some kids? What does it eat?
PPS. The basement isn't as bad as it sounds.