We recently received this message (with some slight editing on our part) from a reader, “What is this creature I found in my bathroom sink? The sink is also where I clean out my cat’s food bowl so I’m wondering if it could have come from the canned food. It looked like it might have had antennae, but the antennae seemed to move like the eyes of a slug.” Along with this message, our reader sent us a photograph:
We are fairly stumped as to what this creature is. While we have some ideas, some of the physical traits of this worm-like organism just don’t add up. Our first thought is that this creature might be an earthworm. Finding an earthworm in your bathroom (sink, toilet, bathtub) is relatively common. Also, earthworms are long, thin, and reddish-brown in color. However, earthworms do not have antennae or eyes that look like antennae. So it doesn’t seem like this creature is an earthworm.
Our next idea is that this specimen is a millipede. Millipedes can be reddish in color, and they have antennae! However, millipedes are not worms, they are arthropods. In fact, millipedes have a plethora of legs, two pairs of jointed legs per body segment. Since the presence of legs is fairly obvious on millipedes, we think our reader probably would have mentioned it if the organism had legs. Therefore, we aren’t convinced this critter is a millipede. So what is this mystery worm-like organism? Unfortunately we don’t know!
To sum up, we aren’t sure what this creature is! We thought it might be an earthworm or millipede, but neither is a great match. We haven’t heard about readers finding worms in canned cat food, but maybe that is where the worm came from. Have any of our other readers found worms in canned cat food? If so, we invite them to share their experience below.
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I found the same red worm like (soft body with no legs) in my bathtub. It wasn’t a millipede. It has antennas. And ma’am it did not come from your cat food cause I don’t have a cat yet I found the same worm in my tub. I was looking for answer too but looks like no one knows what kind of worm it is. Can someone help? ?
Just found one of these by my bathroom sink. What is it???
I just found one of these on my bathroom floor “slitherin” around! Fast little sucker took me a couple tries to get it but freaked me out when I saw it. I just came in with my dogs so I was wondering if it got on one of them because I just cleaned the bathroom. Plus I have never seen one of these things in 30yrs in AZ!!!!
This looks like some thing I found I my bathroom sink . I had just washed my face when I saw this . Is it possible this may have come from my dog ? It appeared that it had small antenna on one end and small legs on the other which seemed to be the head which was doing the moving around . Curious about this was .
There’s one on my ceiling right this second. I was trying to google what it was before doing something about it.
I too have found this worm in my bathtub it is gross I dont know if came thru drain or thru bathtub faucet.
I had a serious pipe burst under apt , a infestion of blk mold in walls and the mgmt of apt act like nothing was wrong.When have you seen a snail get in tub.I start feel this apt is possessed .When they open ground I had a rat and cockroach infestation in which all they gave me was glue traps.
Wow ### what caring apt mgrs.
Can contaminatrd pipes be the cause??