“I’m attaching a photo of an orange type of worm”, begins this reader in her submission about the six-legged creature pictured below. “I found one at the end of my bed sheets, one in between the slats of my window blind in the bathroom and three of them at different times in the kitchen. Two of the ones in the kitchen (only one found at a time) had crawled into my Brita water filter at the top near where the charcoal filter is. I had it sitting on the counter when I left the lid off. The other one was just crawling on a tea canister. These were all seen in a span of two-three weeks. They seem to be less than a half inch long. What are they? Thanks in advance for your help.”

Based on the photo our reader attached, which is really quite excellent as you can make out the finer details of the larva when zooming in on the photo, we think this is a scarlet malachite beetle larva. Its pronged-rear, six legs, coloration, and red markings on its back gave it away. Scarlet malachite beetle larvae are predators, meaning they feed on other smaller insects and mites, but they are not dangerous to humans or pets whatsoever. It sounds like our reader is facing an accidental infestation. What we mean by this is that the mother beetle likely took shelter in our reader’s home and laid her eggs there as it was a safe place to do so. As such, once the eggs hatched, the larvae all started to roam around the home in search of food (or a way out).

The best our reader can do for these critters is move them outside whenever she finds them. We are not sure where our reader is located, but at least in the UK, the scarlet malachite beetle is listed as a priority species due to the fact that their habitats are few and far between (they prefer large spaces of hatch). However, we can imagine the same goes for the other territories they live in, so we really advise against killing them.

To conclude, the orange worm-like creature our reader found is a scarlet malachite beetle larva. They are nothing to be feared, so our reader need not worry for her health. We hope the information we provided proves useful to our reader, and we wish her the very best!

• 
•