“What kind of worm is this?” is all this reader writes in his submission. Fortunately, our reader did send in more than one photo, which does provide some context so far as a photo of a worm is able to. But it is actually this second photo, which sees the worm flipped on its back, that tells us the identity of this worm. Now, for a worm to even have a backside, it needs to have a body which is not tubular like an earthworm’s. And when the underside is a different color than the top, this tells us one more thing: this is probably a flatworm.

“I found two black flatworms”, states this reader about the creature pictured below, which indeed has a glossy black body, with a light gray/white underside. “I already am infested with the hammerhead worms, now what is this worm?”

“What is this?” asks this reader about the black organism in the screenshot below. The creature was found next to our reader’s car by dog excrement.

“I found hundreds of these worms on my covered walkway,” says this reader about the glossy creatures seen in the photographs below. The “specimens” are about 5-6cm (approximately 2 inches) long, “very dark brown to black”, have “no obvious mouth parts at the moving end” and “seem to survive fine in water.”

“I found a dead, black hammerhead worm in a shiny, clear substance in my garage. Does this worm secrete this substance?” asks this reader in her query. The photo she sent us displays a long, thin worm lying in a pool of the aforementioned shiny substance.