A reader recently contacted us about a creature she found in her toilet bowl after urinating. She sent us some photos and hopes we can tell her what it is.

The photos (which are included below) show a brown worm-like organism with 12 segments and a small pointy tail. The specimen also has hair-like appendages coming off a couple of its segments. Our reader also told us that this creature is a little less than ½ inch long.

First, we are confident that this creature was not excreted from our reader’s body. It doesn’t resemble a parasite, and we think it probably fell off a piece of her clothing into the toilet, or got there by some other means.

We believe this might be a carpet beetle larva. Although most carpet beetle larvae have more hairs and longer tails, there is a lot of resemblance. If this is a carpet beetle larva it probably was attached to our readers pants or blouse, and ended up in the toilet when she was using it.

Another possibility is that this is a millipede. Like millipedes, the specimen in question is brown and segmented. Although there aren’t obvious legs on this specimen, they could be tucked underneath. However, we believe this creature is more likely a carpet beetle larva than a millipede.

Although we believe this might be a carpet beetle larva, we are not totally convinced. If any of our readers have seen this specimen before, we invite them to comment with any insights they have about it on the comment feed!

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