“Is the attached a flatworm of some kind?” asks this reader in her submission regarding the brown, worm-like critter pictured below. “It appeared randomly in our cat’s water bowl. We live on the Isles of Scilly. Many thanks.” In case our other readers are not aware, the Isles of Scilly are an archipelago off the coast of England. Now, with regard to the worm that our reader found, it is hard to say from the photo and context if this is a flatworm. The photo is, unfortunately, pretty blurry, and there are not any obvious reasons we can think of for a flatworm climbing into a cat bowl.

With all of that said, the video gives far more information. Although the worm does not move any distance in the video, it is moving what looks like some kinds of appendages or feelers on the underside of its body. This got us thinking about millipedes, and if this is what this creature could be. Millipedes are arthropods, not worms. What this means is that they have an exoskeleton (which worms do not have) that protects their mushy insides. This exoskeleton is split into multiple segments, each of which has a pair of legs sprouting from it. They are harmless critters that feed on decomposing organic debris. It is not impossible that a millipede would find its way into our reader’s home (as they do tend to do this when seeking shelter from unfavourable weather conditions), and drink water from the cat’s bowl.

Now, the thing that has us stumped about this worm is the rather jagged shape of its body. Given that they have an exoskeleton, millipedes have uniformly-shaped bodies, unless they get mangled. This worm does not look mangled. Flatworms tend to have more oddly-shaped bodies, which the hammerhead flatworm exemplifies. And, we think our reader likely thought it was a flatworm for a reason. So, we are by no means ruling out the possibility that this is a flatworm, we just can’t say for certain based on the photo and context. If our reader is concerned about her cat’s health in connection to the discovery of this worm, we recommend that she take her cat to the vet.

In conclusion, we can’t say for certain if this worm is a flatworm or not. The appendages in the video look like they could be legs, which tells us this might be a millipede. We hope this helps, and we wish our reader the very best!

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