Continue Reading
Posted in Interesting Worms

Long, Thin Worm under Potted Plant

A reader wrote to us a few days ago about a “long thin brownish worm” that is four to five inches (10-13 centimeters) long and was found under a potted plant. The potted plant was sitting on top of a tree stump, although this probably isn’t of relevance as far as identification is concerned. The reader said the worm appears to have “tiny scales and slithers rather quickly like a snake.” The reader is wondering what the worm is and what to do with it, and he also wanted to know if he found a pest.

Very small white worm
Continue Reading
Posted in Interesting Worms

Short White Worm as Thin as Pencil Lead

We recently received a very short email that asked us if we could identify a short, thin white worm. More precisely, the worm is about one quarter (1/4) to one half (1/2) of an inch long, or about a half to full centimeter, and it is as thin as pencil led. This is all the information we received, and in fact we weren’t even sent a specific question – the description of the worm’s body was only followed by a question mark (or actually three in this case). We presume the reader wanted to know what he found (assuming he even found something), so we’ll focus on identification: what kind of white worms are as thin as pencil lead?

Bloodworm
Continue Reading
Posted in Interesting Worms

Long, Thin Red Worm in Air Vent of Bathroom

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?

Horsehair worm in pool
Continue Reading
Posted in Gross Worms

Tiny Thin Worms in Lobster Sandwich

A lobster sandwich is a beautiful thing until you find a tiny, thin worm in it, as a recent reader did who wrote to us via the All About Worms Facebook page. The reader purchased the thin worm-infused lobster sandwich at “a food fayre,” which we are assuming is a food fair that took place sometime in the 1800s for spelling-related reasons. After a few bites of the sandwich, the reader “saw a tiny (almost like a hair) sized worm that was striped black and white (ish) wriggling around on my lobster.” The reader said that it wasn’t a maggot, and again mentioned that the worm was “really thin like a piece of hair.” Naturally, the reader took the sandwich back, but was still worried about what she had found. What type of small, thin worms might be found in a piece of lobster?

Bloodworm
Continue Reading
Posted in Pest Worms

Thin Red Worms in the Shower and on the Shower Curtain

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?