We just heard from a reader who discovered a creature in his cooked chicken, hiding underneath the skin. He is curious about the identification of this worm or larva. We see it is brown with 8 segments and we assume it is dead.

Before we attempt to solve this riddle, we would like to advise our reader to refrain from consuming this meat. We do not know the specifics of where the chicken came from or what kind it is, but eating meat that has been contaminated with another species could be quite hazardous to human health. If our reader did eat this chicken and develops any symptoms of illness, we suggest he see a doctor at once.

It is pretty common for readers to find larvae or worms in their food, but it is usually in fruit or vegetables, not meat! Therefore this is a rare case! We do not know if this critter was living in the chicken before it was killed and cooked, or found the chicken to use as a home postmortem. Without these information tidbits, we unfortunately cannot offer any definite answer about what kind of worm or larva this is.

Assuming the specimen in question was living in the chicken as a parasite and was residing in the bird before it was killed and cooked, we think this could be a parasite. There are a handful of parasitic creatures that chose chickens as hosts including ascarids (which are intestinal roundworms), cecal worms, tapeworms, threadworms, gapeworms, and eye worms. However, none of the known parasitic worms resemble the specimen in the photo our reader sent us.

To sum up, we are stumped on what this creature our reader found in his cooked chicken is, and we invite our other readers to comment if they have any ideas!

Summary

Article Name

Reader Discovers Brown Worm in Cooked Chicken

Description

We just heard from a reader who discovered a creature in his cooked chicken, hiding underneath the skin. He is curious about the identification of this worm or larva. We see it is brown with 8 segments and we assume it is dead.

Author

Dori Franklin