A reader wrote to us a little while ago about a small brown worm that she found in her house. She said she “could find this worm under my bed sheets and floor,” and we aren’t sure is we should take this as an expression of the mere possibility that the worm could be found on the bed sheets and floor, as her use of the subjunctive mood seems to suggest, or if the reader did in fact find the worm under her bed sheets and then on the floor. In any case, she sent a picture of the “worm” in question, which actually looks like a larva, not a worm. More specifically, she appears to have found a carpet beetle larva, which the gods have fated us to write about without end. Below we explain why we think our reader found a carpet beetle larva.

Last month, we received a picture of a small brown worm (or small brown creature that looks a bit like a worm). The reader wanted to know what the small worm in the picture was. Another day, another question about small brown worms. Unfortunately, the picture of the creature in question isn’t particularly clear…at all. It appears to feature a curled up brown worm (although it could very well be some sort of caterpillar or larva), but that is about all we can tell. The picture isn’t accompanied by any additional information, such as where the worm (or caterpillar or larva) was found, which is very helpful to know when it comes to identifying worms or other worm-like creatures. Unfortunately, we can only offer a few guesses as to what this creature might be.

We received a picture recently from a reader of what appears to be small brown worms (or perhaps larvae). It was accompanied by a very simple question: “Can you tell what these are?” Unfortunately, the picture isn’t particularly clear, and we know no other information about the worm – if it even is a worm – in question (like where the “worm” was found, if it had any distinguishing characteristics, and so on). For this reason, we can only offer a couple of guesses based on what we do know, which, alas, is not much.