A man found small white worms in every piece of wood in his house and hopes that we can help identify what they are. The image sent in below is difficult to make sense of; there appears to be a smear of white in the center against the green background (which we assume is supposed to be the worm) as well as rings of white surrounding it on all sides.

We don’t think the white stuff our reader find on her lipstick tube is worm-related. We think it is probably just dust or powder.

We received an excellent photo a while ago of what a reader described as two large groupings – or “packs” – of small white worms or larvae that were formed in lines. Since we are pretty certain she found fungus gnat larvae, or more specifically what are sometimes called “fungus gnat larvae snakes,” we will refer to them only as “small white larvae,” and not hedge by writing “small white larvae or worms.” The reader found the lines of white larvae – or we suppose they are actually more like see-through larvae with black heads – on her concrete patio, and was merely wondering what they are. As we said above, they look like gnat fly larvae, so the reader’s question has technically already been answered, but below we provide a little more information about these strange configurations of creations. What exactly are fungus gnat larvae, and why do they group together to form “snakes.”

A reader sent us a simple question a little while ago – “is this wireworms?” – in connection with a video that depicts small white worms crawling out of potatoes soaking in water. These small white worms could be wireworms (or “wire worms,” as some have it), but they could also be potato tuberworms, which are also called “tobacco splitworms” (or more precisely Phthorimaea operculella). To call the worms “small” doesn’t quite capture their size; they are more like tiny white worms, only a few millimeters long and very skinny. This can’t really be seen, but the profanity-infused narration of the video indicates that the tiny white worms are actually coming out of the potatoes, evidently only after they were placed in water. From what we can tell, the worms coming out of the potatoes look more like potato tuberworms than wireworms, but we touch on both possibilities below.

A reader wrote to us recently to ask “what kind of worm falls from the sky?” (The reader actually added three question marks, perhaps indicating his level of concern.) It turns out that the worms, which are small and white, aren’t actually falling from the sky, but rather from an oak tree (or so we surmise – more on this in a moment). The small white worms fall onto our reader’s car and truck, which are parked under an oak tree. The reader was first of all concerned with identifying what the small white worms on the oak tree are, but he was also keen to know where they are coming from. We address both concerns below.

A reader wrote to us the other day about some small white larvae she found all over a towel on the floor of her home. Apart from being quite small – they are about a half centimeter in length at most – they also have a black interior, almost as if a black larva lived within the white larva. The larvae are therefore almost clear – they are see-through in the way that a light-colored mound of Jell-O might be. The reader is wondering what these creatures are and is concerned about their presence, primarily because she has small children in the house. So, what are the small, white larvae (or clear larvae) with the black insides that our reader recently found?

We just wrote an article about small green worms in the garden, so it is fitting that our next question is quite similar: what are the small white worms you find in your garden? This question came up in an email from a reader in southwestern Colorado, where his garden is located. In his 27 years of gardening, he has never seen the recently discovered small white worms in his garden. (The reader put the point much better: “I’ve never seen the likes of this [the small white worms] in 27 years of gardening!”) This is quite the statement, making us curious about what our reader could have possibly found. What are these small white worms in the garden?

We write about maggots a lot. We’re not entirely sure why, but many a reader question centers on the ubiquitous (or so you would think) maggot. We’ve written about maggots on the bathroom floor – twice – and we’ve also touched on maggots found in bone marrow and maggots and dogs. What’s more, all of these maggot-related articles were written recently, within the last half year or so. Clearly, there is no shortage of reader queries about maggots.

If you’ve ever opened up your garbage can and spotted hundreds of “tiny white worms” writhing about, chances are they were not worms. Those nasty little creatures are called maggots.