“I found this small worm on the kitchen counter”, writes Joseph in his submission regarding the brown, segmented, worm-like creature pictured below. “It’s possible it came from a box that was brought up from the basement. It moves slowly, has a couple of pairs of legs near the head, and reacts very fast if you touch it. I live in Connecticut.” Based on the excellent photo Joseph sent us (for which we thank him), we would say that the critter he found is a darkling beetle larva. The most ‘popular’ darkling beetle larva is the mealworm, which we thought this could be at first (and which it might still be), but there are actually many species of darkling beetles, and this could be one of them.

“What kind of a worm is this?” asks this reader about the light brown, segmented, worm-like critter pictured below. “It’s tan and one-inch long, with legs in the front and back that crunch when killed. Found on the floor. We live in Vermont and they have just been showing up lately (March and April).” Naturally, we have gotten to this submission very late, as it was sent last spring, so perhaps this issue has already been resolved. In any case, we still wish to cover the story, in the case that other readers have found similar things, or will find similar things this upcoming spring, and wish to know what it is.

“Found these worms in the back yard and there are a lot!” writes this reader in Greece about the light brown, segmented creature pictured below. “I have a small garden there with an orange tree but the garden is unattended. What are those? They seem to be active at night and light attracts them, I think.” Firstly, we want to thank our reader for the great photo. Clear photos like this one greatly help us identify the creatures that we are asked about. Secondly, we have identified this as a mealworm.

“What are these worms?” asks Ruby about the group of yellow creatures with brown heads pictured below. “They are mainly in the bedroom but there are also some in the living room. I live in Katy, Texas. Thank you.” Well, we thank Ruby for the excellent photo she sent in. We can clearly see their dark yellow coloration, as well as the segmentation of their bodies, which has us concluding that these are mealworms. Mealworms are not actually worms at all, but larvae. Larvae are young insects that look a bit like worms. Their goal at this stage of life is to eat as much as possible so that they can store up energy for pupation: the stage that comes before adulthood. During pupation, they metamorphose into their adult form, like a caterpillar (which is a larva!) metamorphoses into a butterfly or moth.

“What is this?” is all Rocky asks about the brown worm-shaped creature pictured below. It is unfortunate that Rocky does not provide any context, as that always helps us narrow down the possibilities for what the given organism might be, especially when the photo does not already tell us what it is. And in this case, we cannot tell what this critter is based on the photo: it kind of looks like a cigarette or a dried up worm. Our best guess is that this is a mealworm, and we base this solely on its coloration. Mealworms also possess clear segmentation that we cannot see from the photo, but we suppose that, given the low resolution of the photo, the segmentation could just not be visible on the photo.

“Found these worms in the backyard and there are a lot!” exclaims this reader in his submission regarding the segmented, yellow worm-like critter pictured below. “I have a small garden there with an orange tree, but the garden is unattended. What are those? They seem to be active in the night and light attracts them I think.” Based on the excellent photo our reader sent in, as well as the helpful context, we would conclude that these are mealworms. Mealworms are the larval stage of the mealworm beetle, which is a species of darkling beetle. As our reader correctly stated, mealworms are nocturnal, and while they are not necessarily attracted to light, they can sense it.

“One of my children found a worm in a bed,” states this reader about the segmented, dark brown worm-like creature seen below. “From the pictures on your site, I think it is a mealworm.”

“We started seeing an infestation of dead worms/worm-like creatures around the edge of part of the pool,” reports this reader in a small town outside Sacramento, California. The worms in question appear to have segmented, yellowish bodies, and have small legs protruding from one end of their bodies.

“I have two kinds of mealworms” says this reader, “one is small, the others are larger”. He provides no photographs of the worms but asks “what kind are they?”

“I found a little critter on my bathroom floor a few weeks ago” says this reader about the worm-like creature with “a dark red head”, “striped brown” body and “a bunch of little feet.” Having saved the creature from a worse fate out in the cold, our reader is concerned that the critter is dying as he does not know what species it is, nor what food it needs.

We aren’t sure if the specimens our reader found in the soil are mealworms or wireworms! We wish her the best of luck with her garden!

A reader wrote to us recently about some worms she is finding in her kitchen drawers and occasionally on her kitchen counters. For several reasons, we know that the “worms” in the drawers are actually larvae, so we’ll drop the word “worm” from here on out for the sake of accuracy. The larvae were identified as “carpet bugs” by a “carpet guy,” who told the reader she needed to steam clean her house (naturally) and use some sort of pesticide. This is where the reader’s email ends – she actually doesn’t ask any question – but we are assuming she at least wants to know what the larvae in kitchen drawers are, and once we arrive at an identification, we can briefly touch on the matter of getting rid of them.