“I found this worm in a puddle of water on top of a tarp”, writes Donna in her submission regarding the long, thick, purple worm pictured below. “It appears to not like to dry out. It seems happiest just laying in the water. The mouth has this white tongue it sticks out. When disturbed it does jump a little like the Asian jumping worms, but not as extreme. It also can crawl backwards as well as forwards. Pics attached. I am a returning reader.” Firstly, welcome back to Donna. Secondly, we think the connection she made to the Asian jumping worm is very appropriate, because just like the Asian jumping worm, we think the critter Donna found is an earthworm.

Earthworms: Earth’s best friend. We have often called these guys the “token worm”, as this is typically the organism people think of when they hear the word “worm”. Which is quite a lot of power for an earthworm to hold in its (nonexistent) hands. This article will be the first in a series that look at some of the most notable and often-discussed species of earthworms, if only to cover a small portion of this diverse suborder of annelids. We’ll start with some of the basics, and work our way up to the more exciting ones.

“What is this worm?” is all Gemma writes in her submission regarding the segmented, worm-like creature pictured below. Since all we can go on is the picture and video, we would say this looks like some type of earthworm, maybe a tiger worm. Typically, tiger worms are more red than this brown color, but since the lighting is quite bad in the photo and video, it could very well be red. The movements of the worm in the video also suggest that it does not possess legs, as it has to lift its head to look around before squirming forward, much like an earthworm.

“This was found in our toilet bowl on its own”, writes this reader about the red-striped worm pictured below. “Do you know if it’s a parasite? Thank you for your website. It’s a really useful website and very informative. Thanks!” To that we want to thank our reader for the compliment, and for coming to us to have this worm identified. And with that in mind, we think our reader has found herself a tiger worm, albeit a mangled one. Like most worm species, tiger worms typically have a uniform shape to their bodies, and we can see how this worm’s body is very irregular. How we were able to tell that this is a tiger worm is by the parts of its body that are still intact. The stripes, coloration, and shape of those parts indicate that this is a tiger worm.

“I found this worm in my toilet bowl”, states this reader in Turkey about the red-striped worm pictured below. “I had not used this toilet for almost 24 hours. It looks like an earthworm. But I also wonder if it could be some sort of parasite. Thanks for any comment.” Based on the excellent image our reader sent in, we would say this is an earthworm, specifically a tiger worm. These creatures, otherwise known as red wigglers or red Californians, are completely harmless creatures, just like the common earthworm. They are not parasitic, and they do not bite or sting, so our reader needs not worry for her health and safety.

“This is the second one I have found in our mobile home”, states this reader in Belding, Michigan. She is referring to the minuscule, red worm-like organism pictured below, and wants to know how they are getting into her home.

“Can you identify this worm?” asks this reader about the striped, red worm pictured below. “I found it right next to my dog’s poop.”

A worm was found in the toilet of this reader, alive, and she wonders if we could help identify it for her as she is “freaked” out. The worm in question appears to be red in color, with segmented stripes, and a long, smooth body.

Recently, we received a question from a woman who had a waterlogged wormery. She threw the entire contents into the compost bin and now she finds that her compost includes big, happy, healthy composting worms in it. She suspects that the composting worms are tiger worms. This is probably correct, since tiger worms (Eisenia fetida, also known as red wrigglers) are often used in wormeries. They’re great little composters.

Tiger worms have the ability to consume their own body weight in food each day. This means that because there is plenty to go around, the organic waste material that their bodies produce can also be used as a powerful fertilizer.