According to the Cornell Waste Management Institute of the famed Cornell University, worms do not bite. In fact, in nature wax worms do not feed on anything but pollen, honey, cocoons, and beeswax. Wax worm breeders have no problems feeding their inventory of wax worms without the help of pollen and cocoons. These squirmy little creatures can also survive off of an artificial diet of a mixture of dog food, water, and honey or a mixture of Gerber’s mixed cereal, glycerin, honey, and water.

Grub worms feed on plants and the roots of turf grasses and the adult beetles feed on trees, shrubs, and other foliage. While grub worms are harmless to humans, they can be devastating to crops mainly because they feed on crop roots.

A reader asked us through the All About Worms Facebook page about “white worms with yellow bottoms [that are] eating my Dogwood trees.” These white worms with yellow bottoms are very likely white larvae with yellow bottoms, so we’ll adjust our usage accordingly. The reader asked us for an identification, and we’ll largely limit ourselves to this specific matter to keep things short and simple.

We received a question through the All About Worms Facebook page about red and orange caterpillars that a reader recently found on an apple tree. To call them “red and orange caterpillars” is at once insufficient and overreaching. It is insufficient because the creatures aren’t only red and orange; they have black heads and legs, and some orange parts of their bodies might just as easily be described as yellow. White hairs also cover their bodies, and they are striped lengthwise, from head to tail. We overreach, however, in claiming without explanation that these creatures are caterpillars. The reader identifies them as worms, so we must explain why we think they are instead caterpillars. This explanation is of course tied to the matter of identification, which is what the reader is wondering about, and to that topic we now turn.

Worms prefer complete darkness because the light affects them in the worst way. Light does not kill worms, but if worms spend too much time in the light (typically one hour), they become paralyzed.

This reader “would be extremely grateful” if we could help her identify some parasites that have invaded her family. Our reader writes to us in the hopes that the answers that we provide may “hopefully prevent others from experiencing a terror” such as the one our reader has faced.

A little while ago a reader wrote to us about some white worms with a green spot that “appeared out of nowhere” in his basement. The reader got rid of many of the worms in the basement by taking them outside, but when he got back there were even more worms than there were before. The reader said the creatures in the basement looked like inchworms, but he didn’t seem very confident in this suggestion. He also mentioned that it was raining out when he made his discovery, and thought this might have something to do with the worms’ sudden appearance in the basement. What might the white worms with green spots in our reader’s basement be?

What is a night crawler? This is the basic question we are concerned with, and the answer is straightforward: a night crawler (also written as “nightcrawler”) is simply an earthworm, an extremely common worm we have written about dozens of times. After a brief refresher on exactly what earthworms are, we’ll explain why they are called “night crawlers” (or, again, “nightcrawlers”), and also list some of the other names that earthworms go by. Thus, our treatment of night crawlers and earthworms will be more linguistic than biological.

We received a long, detailed, and disconcerting email from a reader about a week ago. We aren’t sure how to address it, and internal deliberations took place about possible approaches we could take to this reader’s email and question. Actually, the reader didn’t ask a question, but instead listed several extreme medical problems she has experienced over the last six years following an intestinal worm diagnosis. The worm that infected her intestines has been one of only many concerns, as she has experienced several disturbing problems. It’s not clear if all of these problems are truly physical, or if some of them may be emotional, or whether they are related to the intestinal worm infection, and in any case we can’t comment on any of this because we aren’t medical professionals. Nothing we say should be construed as medical advice, and in fact we won’t say much at all. Rather, we will let our reader’s email speak for itself. Perhaps readers have had worm problems, or at least what are experienced as worm problems, that compare to our reader’s issues over the last six years.

One of our readers discovered a small larvae in his home. We think this might be a mealworm, but we aren’t totally sure.

A reader wrote to us a while back about an interesting red worm that he found. He took a picture of the creature (see below), which shows a relatively small red worm in what appears to be an arid environment. The picture captures the red worm mid-movement, showing the middle of the worm’s body raised in an arc, which led the reader to suspect that he found an inchworm (commonly spelled as two separate words – “inch worm” – and also called a “measuring worm”). We have no reason to doubt this hypothesis, so below we provide some basic information about inch worms, although for reasons that we explain we aren’t sure exactly what the red inchworm our reader found is.

“I’ve been de-mothing my bedroom recently, and found a few of these”, writes this reader in Colorado about the thin, brown-striped, worm-like creature pictured below. “While they bear a passing resemblance to carpet beetle larvae, they don’t appear to match up exactly (I am, however, not the expert here). I’ve included both pictures of a dead one and video of a live one moving. If helpful, I live in the Rocky Mountain area.” First off, we want to say that we agree that this does look like a carpet beetle larva, and we do think that is what it is. The reason why it might not match up exactly with our reader’s idea of a carpet beetle larva is because there are actually multiple species of carpet beetles, all of which look slightly different from one another.

One of our readers recently reached out to us requesting help. She explained that she had some “worms of parasitic nature” retrieved from her cheek. She acknowledges that she should see a doctor but is hopeful that we will be able to identify these worms before she reaches out to a physician.

One of our readers noticed a worm-like organism in her toilet. We are confident that she is dealing with a rat-tailed maggot! She can get rid of this larvae by cleaning her toilet thoroughly.

Many species of tongue worms have superficial ringlike markings. This gives them the appearance of being segmented.

A reader from Texas recently wrote to us about some small black worms he is finding in his recreational vehicle (“RV”), and sent us a picture of one that is on his floor. On some days, he finds as many as six or seven of the black worms (which can also be “charcoal grey” worms) in his RV, but he has also gone up to a week without finding any worms. After struggling to discern where the worms are coming from, he finally concluded that they are entering the RV through the heat vents. The reader lives in his RV, and so was naturally wondering what he is finding, and he also wanted to know how to get rid of the black worms that have taken up residence in his RV.

A reader found carpet beetle larvae in her home. As most of our site visitors know, we write about carpet beetle larvae every week, and we are confident that our reader can say goodbye to these unwanted visitors with some dedicated cleaning.

A reader wrote to us a while ago about worms in his swimming pool, or what are believed to be worms in his swimming pool. (The worms could be larvae, potentially of the Chironomidae family.) The worms or larvae are about an inch (2.5 centimeters) long, brown and yellow in color, and quite thin, about the width of pencil lead, according to the reader. The reader only wants to know what the brownish, yellowish worms (or larvae) in his swimming pool are, so we will limit our remarks to the matter of identification.

A reader asked us a couple of days ago why there are no longer Catawba worms on her Catalpa trees (or Catalpa worms on her Catawba trees – “Catalpa” and “Catawba” are interchangeable). Catawba worms make excellent fishing bait, so the reader was keen to find out how to attract them back to her trees. Since she gave no information about her circumstances, it’s of course very difficult to say why the Catawba worms left, and for similar reasons it is hard to say how to get them back. (Obviously, the two questions are related.) Even in the absence of specific information, we can still supply some general information about attracting Catawba worms to Catalpa trees, and what keeps them away.

One of our readers discovered some small brown creatures under a blanket in her home. We think they are probably carpet beetle larvae.