“What is this?” asks Cyndi in her submission regarding the long, black worm with a gray striped down its back pictured below. “It’s fascinating! I found it crawling on my window and along the window sill. It lifts its head moving forward. It almost appears to have eyes. It only moves forward (front is left to right). I appreciate the help!” Based on the fantastic photo Cyndi sent us, we think she has found a New Guinea flatworm. As their name suggests, this species of flatworm is endemic to New Guinea (the island off the coast of Australia), and is considered an invasive species in other countries. Besides concerns about how their presence will disrupt the biodiversity in the habitats they are introduced to, New Guinea flatworms do not pose much of a threat to humans, despite popular anti-flatworm rhetoric.

“I found two black flatworms”, states this reader about the creature pictured below, which indeed has a glossy black body, with a light gray/white underside. “I already am infested with the hammerhead worms, now what is this worm?”

“Small, thin, black worms” of approximately 1-2-inches have been showing up in our reader’s backyard. This is a new occurrence for our reader, as it has only been happening for the past “couple of months”, and our reader wonders if they are “good worms or bad worms.”

“Can you identify this creepy thing? Thanks!!!” is all this reader writes in his submission to us. The “creepy thing” he is referring to is the long, black worm pictured below, with bulbous bulges protruding from the length of its body.

Finding this creature in his toilet caused this Floridian to “freak out a bit.” The creature in question appears to be a dark brown/black on its topside, and has a lighter, grayish underside. He asked his “biologist friend” to take a look at it, who said it looked like a New Guinea flatworm.

Flatworms are a topic often discussed within the world of worms; there are 25,000-odd species of them and they come in all sorts of colors and are extraordinary creatures. Unfortunately, their odd, flat shape alone has given them a bad reputation and has spawned a lot of awful, and a lot of times false, rumors about them.

A reader in Texas recently sent in this image of a worm she found on a dead twig in the dirt after rain. The worm appears to be black/gray in color, and extremely tiny.

A reader reached out to us about little black worm-like organisms that have suddenly appeared in her apartment. We think these creatures might be New Guinea flatworms or brahminy blind snakes, although they could be something else.