We received an interesting question from a reader the other day via the All About Worms Facebook page about “some sort of short white maggot” crawling out of the abdomen of a cricket. The reader feeds the crickets to his chameleon, and recently gnats have been found in the “chameleon’s habitat.” The reader speculated there might be a connection between the gnats and the short white maggots – indeed, he thought the maggots might be the gnats themselves – and asked us to weigh in on the matter. What type of short white maggot could be inside a cricket?

Recently, a reader wrote to us about the crickets he is raising, which as of late have been dying at a fast rate. The reader speculated that his crickets are falling victim to horsehair worms, which are parasites that belong to the phylum Nematomorpha. A horsehair worm can develop in the bodies of several insects, including grasshoppers, cockroaches, and, yes, crickets. The reader’s question was twofold: are his crickets dying from horsehair worms, and is there anything he can do to eliminate the problem to save his crickets?