A reader wrote to us a while back about a long brown worm with black stripes that she found in a decaying stump. Fortunately, she sent us an excellent photo of the brown worm, which we were quickly able to identify as a hammerhead worm (sometimes understandably, but incorrectly, spelled “hammer head worm”). The reader was merely wondering what the long brown worm was, so we’ve technically already answered her question, but if we stopped writing now, we wouldn’t have a very satisfying article to read. So, below we supply some information about hammerhead worms, which includes the reader’s excellent picture.

We recently received a question from a reader about whether or not it is possible to fish with hammerhead worms. The reader didn’t actually ask about hammerhead worms specifically, but she sent us a picture of what we are basically certain is a hammerhead worm, and then asked if she can fish with it. We’ll first provide some basic information about these creatures, and then we’ll move on to the more specific topic of fishing with hammerhead worms.

A reader wrote to us recently about “what appears to be hammerhead worms stuck to the ceiling of [her nephew’s] carport.” The reader only asked us if we “have ever heard of this,” so she evidently is only curious about the very limited matter of whether or not we have ever heard of hammerhead worms on the ceiling of a carport. We’ll limit ourselves to this question, but since we have written about hammerhead worms several times before, we will also point to some additional articles about these creatures.