“I found this on my bathroom floor!” states this reader about the gray, segmented creature pictured below. “Pretty large! I live in Anderson, California.” One thing we want to point out is the hair-like object lying curled around this bug. We do not know if our reader is also asking about that, or if it is indeed just a piece of hair, but we will take it into consideration nonetheless. When it comes to the big bug, this looks like a black soldier fly larva. These critters are sometimes mistaken for caterpillars, but are the very famous, and celebrated, immature forms of the black soldier fly. They can grow up to an inch in length, and the reason they are so revered is because of how useful and easy they are to farm, and the sheer amount of resources we can get from them.

Besides being edible and full of all sorts of nutrients and proteins that are important to the body, BSFL are very efficient decomposers, meaning that they eat organic matter and convert it, via digestion, into all sorts of useful products. Like earthworms and millipedes, BSFL can convert organic matter into fertilizer, but on top of that they are proficient at converting organic matter into animal feed, biodiesel, and even chitin (a kind of glucose found in the exoskeletons of crustaceans). Neither the flies nor the larvae are harmful to human beings: they do not bite, they are not parasitic, and they do not carry any known diseases or pathogens. We suggest that our reader simply move the larva outside, where it will thrive.

Now, when it comes to the hair-like object beneath the bug, this looked to us like it could be a horsehair worm. Horsehair worms are parasites that solely infect insects. There have been cases of humans finding them in their bodies, or coughing/vomiting them up, but those invasions of the body have been accidental, as the horsehair worm cannot successfully develop inside the body of a mammal. That said, this could very well just be a piece of hair, so our reader should not worry much about it either way.

In conclusion, we think that the creature our reader found is a black soldier fly larva. They are not harmful and are very important, so it is important that she does not kill it, but that she move it outside instead. We hope this helps and we wish her the very best!

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