Red worms are among some of the best worms for composting, which is also known as “vermiculture”.

One of our Canadian readers’ two-year-old son and her husband had just finished up a shower when they found this…

We recently received a question through the All About Worms Facebook page about “two red worms in the toilet bowl.” The worms were “10 cm long, thin, like one millimeter in diameter, and alive, even in the water, they were still moving.” The reader didn’t actually ask for an identification, but instead asked if the worms might be parasites. This is his main concern, and we will focus on this question, although the answer is of course tied to what exactly the reader found, so we’ll touch on the matter of identification as well. What might the red worm in the toilet be, and are they parasitic?

A reader wrote to us recently to ask about two worms she found in her kitchen. The worms have red bodies and tan heads, and they are perhaps a half an inch (one centimeter) long. The reader isn’t particularly concerned with what they are, and is instead focused on the question of where they came from. She has no indoor houseplants, and her windows and doors have been closed. She also says she has no food, but it is hard to take this literally, so perhaps she just doesn’t have food that is laying around the kitchen. As the reader points out, though, these two worms must of come from somewhere, and where might that be?

A red worm was found by a reader in Northern Germany – or perhaps we should say ein roter Wurm wurde von einem Leser in Norddeutschland gefunden – and he wrote to us to see if we might be able to identify it. The worm was found in a garden, where it was mostly underground, and it is not exactly red. Its overall body is more like a pinkish color, but the bottom of the worm’s body is almost white. More precisely, the color of the worm fades as you move down its body – the top is a red or dark pink color, the middle is a light pink, and then the bottom is almost entirely white. What might our reader have found?

We received a question from a reader recently who has been finding red worms in his sink drain. The reader describes his situation well, so we’ll quote (with a few minor edits) his entire email, after which we’ll get on to the task of identifying the worms in the drain: “These worms keep entering through the sink hole of my bathroom. I just pour water and wash them down the drain again. But still they manage to come up again. They crawl really slowly and they move away from the sink hole. I am scared that they might be harmful because their color is very red…..like blood sucking parasites! Please help. Let me know what these are and how you can get rid of them. Even if they aren’t harmful, I’ll be happy not to see them again.”

A reader wrote to us recently to ask about a small red worm he found in the pocket of his sweatshirt and in one of his socks. The reader gave no indication why the worms might have been in his clothing, so perhaps he wasn’t sure. Indeed, the reader gave us practically no information at all, although he did send us a photo of the creature. What kind of small red worm might you find in a sweatshirt pocket or in your sock?

A reader wrote to us a couple of days ago about a long, thin red worm that she found in the air vent of her bathroom. The worm is about three or four inches (seven to ten centimeters) long and “about half as thick as your typical earthworm.” The head of the worm had two “‘horns'” on it. (The reader put the word “horns” in quotes, of course indicating that she is using the word loosely, and hence the double quotes in the preceding sentence.) The reader had only one question: what is the long, thin red worm (with some sort of horns) in the air vent of the bathroom, assuming it is even a worm?

A reader wrote to us via the All About Worms Facebook page to ask us about some small red worms that she recently found on her bedroom wall. The worms appear to have a cocoon or shell, or perhaps they just shed their skin (the reader mentioned all three as possibilities). The worms also seem to be legless and hairless. The reader reports that she has seen the small red worms before when she was younger; they were generally under stuffed animals that were on the floor, and again she noted that they seemed to leave behind their molted skin. In light of their repeated appearance in her life, our reader wants to know what the small red worms are, if they are even worms at all.

A few days ago we received a question from a reader who sent us a picture of what appears to be a red caterpillar with eyes. (Just a few days ago, we answered a question about a yellow worm with eyes, and the “worm” in question was in fact a caterpillar, so evidently people are seeing lots of caterpillars with eyes recently.) Along with the picture, the reader asked one question (slightly edited for clarity): “What kind of animal is in the photo?” Presumably, he is wondering what the red caterpillar with eyes is, so we will limit ourselves to the matter of identification.

We recently received an email from a reader who found a small and thin red worm crawling on her shower curtain. The reader immediately goes on to say that she is “assuming the worm is a bloodworm,” and we think this is as reasonable of a suggestion as any. The reader planned to remove the small red worm from her curtain after her shower, but by the time she had finished, the bloodworm (sometimes written as “blood worm”) had disappeared. The reader thought that this might mean that the bloodworm “hitch-hiked a ride somewhere on my body,” which led to her question for us: are bloodworms harmful?

A reader recently moved to southern Florida and has since been “invaded with a reddish brown worm.” The worms are about an inch (2.5 centimeters) long and coil up when touched. The reader is finding the worm not only on his lanai, but occasionally in his house as well. (A lanai is a furnished veranda that often serves as the living room of a house, so we’re not sure what is considered the lanai and what is considered the house.) The reader is clearly frustrated with the worms because they won’t go away, even after he uses insecticides. So, he is wondering what the reddish brown worms are and how he can get rid of them.

A concerned reader wrote to us a while back about some red worms on her bathroom floor. (Technically, the worms in the bathroom are “reddish-brown,” to use the reader’s exact phrase.) She has found the worms twice now, causing her some concern because she has never seen the creatures before in the 12 years she has lived in her house. The worms have a “snail head,” and the reader didn’t notice any legs. Naturally, the reader was curious about what she was finding, and so the question before us is this: what are the red worms in her bathroom?

A frustrated reader wrote to us a while ago about tiny, red worms that he has been finding in his kitchen and bathroom. According to the reader, the worms are actually “redish” (reddish, presumably), approximately the color of rust. The tiny, red worms do not have any legs, and they don’t appear to have hair either. The reader finds the worms when he is sweeping – they crawl out of the piles of dirt that accumulate. The reader insists that no one knows what they are, and that no website dedicated to worms and larvae (including All About Worms) has any information about the worms in his bathroom and kitchen. What are the tiny, red worms he is finding?

We received a rather bizarre question (actually, it was more like a statement) from a reader recently about a pink, white, and red worm she found. (Perhaps we should write pinkish, whitish, and reddish worm, as the worm isn’t really any of these colors precisely.) The subject of the “question” isn’t very bizarre – it clearly centers on a white, red, and pink worm – but its execution is. The reader’s message, written in all capital letters for no apparent reason, asks no question, but it does describe a worm found in a garden, and it ends with the statement “I am curious,” which is written in a larger font. Because of the message’s considerable ambiguity, we’ll have to just assume that the reader simply wanted to know what the worm is. What is the white, red, and pink worm our reader found in the garden?

A reader from Philadelphia recently wrote to us in regard to the small, red worms he is finding in his tree. The worms are only about an inch or two long, and they are thin. According to the reader, they look like earthworms, except that they are smaller and dark red. What are these worms, and if you find them in your tree, should you do anything about it?

Also called “vermicompost” or “worm compost,” castings are such powerful fertilizers because worms eat nutrient packed fruit and vegetable scraps. When worms consume vegetable scraps, the scraps become compost as they pass though the worms body. The compost exits the worm’s body through its tail.

Red worms are epigeic or detritivorous earthworms. They do not eat animal or human flesh. Red worms are vegetarians, so they eat vegetables and other organic matter. There are more than 120,000 species of flies around the world and many of the most common flies, such as the fruit fly, eat decaying fruits and vegetables as well.

These long and lean worms can grow up to 8 feet long. Like the bottom half of a tube of lipstick, the worms’ tube is tough.

The best worms to use for composting are red worms. Red worm is the common name for Eisenia fetida/foetida and Lumbricus rubellus. Red worms are a type of earthworm that is also commonly used as bait for fish such as perch and sunfish. Eisenia fetida/foetida (also called red wiggler, manure worm, or brandling) is commonly used for composting.