“Found on my desk when my cat jumped down”, writes Beverly about the “shape shifting”, white organism pictured below. “Approximately 1/2 an inch when elongated. I tried to kill it with insect repellent – no effect. Put it on a tray to photograph. It made the shape of a round blob, then a flattened square, a triangle next, before finally reaching out from the blob when changing directions, from no set point.” Beverly sent us multiple photographs, a couple of which we have included below that show these different shapes the organism makes. Now, provided this creature is worm-like, it would be flexible enough to contort its body in many different ways, which is a more plausible explanation than shape-shifting. Many worm-like organisms, such as the earthworm, can flex and relax the muscles in their body, which will extend and shorten their bodies, which can look as if the worm is changing shape. Likewise, slugs are able to do the same; when they feel threatened, they can effectively withdraw their head and antennae into their bodies and become a “blob” where before they were an elongated shape.

“What are these?” asks this reader about the brown creatures pictured below. “Tons of them in the drain pipe, but they don’t look like drain fly larvae. Thank you!” The creatures above look stubby and thick, brown in color, with black antennae and what appears to be a layer of grayish slime oozing from their undersides.

We think it goes without saying that a website that specializes in writing about worms holds a certain appreciation for worms. This appreciation may be something that is not reflected by the general public, but is something we want to change with this article, which will give a couple of examples of worms with abilities so extraordinary that one might have to reconsider their negative view on worms.

“Blimey!” says this reader, who found “the thinnest slug” that he has ever seen. The slug in question appears to be minuscule in size, our reader including an “inch-wide star handrail” in the photograph he sent in for size comparison, and is a dark brown color.

A reader wonders if the creature in this photograph is a dead slug. From the photo we can tell that the creature has black coloration, a smooth exterior, a shape that is bulbous at the head but thins out towards the tail, and is small compared to the $10 bill our reader exhibited for size comparison.

Small, slimy worms have been found on the fur of this woman’s poor cat a number of times over the course of a few weeks. In the picture our reader sent in, we can see a minuscule, brown worm-shaped creature, with two antennae at its head, and a tubular body that thins out at the tail. Another thing worth noticing is the obvious split in color and texture along its middle, the upper half of the creature being a lighter brown than its lower half.

A reader from the UK found a white, slimy-looking creature on her kitchen floor. The creature is inconsistent in shape, its body having a round, thicker middle and then thinning out to a tip on one end, and into a more circular shape on the other, which seems to be curled into the body. The latter end also has a black circle with a white middle, and seems to have some discoloration.

One of our readers sent us a picture and a video of a slimy creature that she found in her home. She said it was in the bathroom very close to her dog. She said that when it moves, it bunches itself up by pulling its head toward the middle of its body and then it extends its head. She also mentioned that she lives in Colorado. After looking at the picture and the video, we have determined that this slimy creature is a slug.

One of our readers has written to us about some slugs that he has found. These slugs are white with black spots. We have done quite a lot of research on slugs and we have found that they could be quite a few different types. Based on the details from our reader, we have decided that these slugs are more than likely the Limax Maximus.

We received an extremely detailed question about a worm a while back from a reader in England. The reader has been trying to identify the worm, which is gray and slimy, for the past nine years (since April 14th, 2006, to be exact). The reader found the creature under a discarded pillow in Holywells Park in the town of Ipswich, which is in Suffolk, England. (He even gave us an Ordnance Survey National Grid reference, a British geographic grid reference system, so that we could pinpoint the exact area where he found the worm.) The worm leaves a “slim-trail” behind it when it moves. The reader thought be might have found a “Worm Slug,” or Boettgerilla pallens, but he has since ruled out this possibility. What kind of slimy, gray worm is our reader finding?

A reader in the San Francisco Bay area reported that on a recent morning her house was “covered” with “thousands” of worms or larvae. They were on the wood paneling of the house’s exterior, essentially enveloping entire walls. After applying what we can only imagine was a massive dose insecticide, the reader managed to kill all but three of the creatures on her home. So, the problem was essentially taken care of by the time she wrote to us, but she was still curious what she found. She said the creatures looked like snails because of their antennae, but we actually think she found slugs (snails without shells) with tentacles for reasons we will detail shortly.

A reader wrote to us a few days ago about some small black worms she found at the bottom of her kids’ laundry basket. She also found a couple more worms when transferring their clothes from the washing machine to the drier, so the worms can evidently be traced back to the clothing of her children. The reader was wondering what these black worms in the laundry basket are, and we think they might be leeches (which are actually worms) or potentially slugs (which aren’t worms).

We received a fairly puzzling question a little while ago from a reader about what he believed to be a red worm. Much was made of the red worm’s “antennae,” which are evidently retractable if we are understanding the reader’s description properly. If the worm did have retractable antennae, the “antennae” are probably tentacles and the “worm” is likely a slug. Below we explain the “red slug in the bathroom” hypothesis in more detail, exploring it with reference to the reader’s precise circumstances.

A reader wrote to us about a brown worm on his patio that was crawling toward a leaky water pipe. The reader was quite taken by the worm, and said “it was amazing!” The worm is about four inches (10 centimeters) long, and it had “titticles that parted.” While we find the word “titticles” to be excellent, not least because of is sexually confused connotations, we presume our reader meant tentacles. What could this brown worm with tentacles on the patio have been?

A frustrated reader wrote to us about the “numerous 1 inch worms” that appear on his porch after it rains. The reader has never experienced the worms-after-rain phenomenon until this year, and he is irritated with the worms’ presence. (Or the presence of whatever creature our reader is finding – they could be slugs, for instance.) He wants to get rid of the worms (or slugs) on his porch, which he regards as nothing but a pest. The worms are brown and, as mentioned, one inch in length. Most notably, the worms are described as having “antennae or eyes” on the front end of their bodies. What are the one-inch, brown worms on the patio after it rains, and how can you get rid of them?

A large majority of plant-eating slugs called Veronicellidae can be found in tropical areas. Other types of slugs may be carnivorous. These slugs, including Testacellidae (Europe), actually eat earthworms and snails.