We received a photo from a reader that appears to depict a few dozen dried worms on some concrete surface, perhaps a driveway, or maybe a sidewalk leading up to a front door. (“Dried worms” sounds almost like some sort of snack, so maybe “dried-up worms” or “dried-out worms” is a better way to describe them.) Normally, we would say the reader asked a question about the dried worms on the driveway or sidewalk or whatever concrete surface we are looking at, but no question was asked. In fact, no text was supplied whatsoever – the picture was submitted and nothing else. We can’t divine exactly what our reader is looking for from us, but context suggests we take his message as an unspoken question of identification. What are the dozens of worms on the concrete, and how did they get there?

A reader wrote to us on the All About Worms Facebook page about the prospect of reviving a dried-out worm with water. If gotten to soon enough, she asked, could a worm that is rapidly drying out on the sidewalk be resuscitated with water? More precisely, she asked about “red inch garden worms,” which we take to mean some type of inchworm, so she is technically asking about reviving dried-out caterpillars with water, not worms (because inchworms, being the larval form of geometer moths, are caterpillars). This actually changes things a bit, as caterpillars aren’t as susceptible to drying out as worms, but we’ll address both issues at once. So, the whole question before us is: can you revive worms or caterpillars that are dried-out with water?