A concerned father wrote to us several months ago about a worm his daughter discovered in the shower. The worm is pale pink, and has a black ring on one end. He wonders what this could be.

This is an earthworm! We can see from the picture, and the “black ring”, or clitellum, is also an indicator. The clitellum is a glandular, non-segmented section of the earthworm where eggs are stored.

Earthworms are common visitors to showers and bathrooms, and they can end up there in a variety of ways. Sometimes, they are dragged in on a shoe or household pet, and find their way to the bathroom in search of moisture. Other times they get in via the pipes that run through the moist soil under the housing foundation. If this family continues to find these worms in the shower, they can contact a plumber to make sure everything is running smoothly.

To sum up, a reader wrote to us about a worm his daughter found while in the shower. We easily identified this as an earthworm!