Horsehair worm in pool
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Posted in Interesting Worms

Long Worms in France

A reader wrote to us a while ago about a long worm he found in the garden of his rural home in France. The reader found the worm “wriggling through the long grass” and estimated it to be about as long as wholemeal spaghetti (or presumably any type of spaghetti, for that matter). The reader was wondering what this very long worm might be, and our best hypothesis is that it is a horsehair worm (Nematomorpha), which are also known as Gordian worms (after the legend of the Gordian knot). Although a long worm that resembles spaghetti is very likely to be a horsehair worm, it is worth mentioning that it could be something even more common: a simple earthworm.