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Posted in Parasite Worms Worms Facts Worms Generally

String-looking Worm in Stream is a Horsehair Worm

“I was wondering if the white, string-looking thing in the attached video was some kind of worm”, writes this reader about the creature pictured below. “I saw it in a bucket of dirt/rocks I’d brought home from a stream in South Dakota. They were visibly moving in the water but shriveled up quickly after taking out and putting it on a rock. Thanks for the help.” Based on the context, as well as the excellent photo and video, we would say it is possible that this is some type of worm. The only thing that has us questioning this is the video: the way that worm is blowing in the wind as if it’s a dry noodle seems a bit odd. We’re not sure a worm would be blown about quite so easily in the wind, even if it was dried out. But then again, we haven’t had a lot of experience with dried worms blowing around in the wind, so who are we to say?

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Posted in Fishing Worms Marine Worms Worms Generally

Dark, Small Worms Found in Minnesota Lake Pose Concerns for Residents About Invasive Species

“When I came out of our northern Minnesota lake in early October (cooling off on a warm fall day), my legs and swim trunks were covered in over 100 small dark brown to black larvae/worms”, writes this reader to us in his submission. “My guess is that they detached from the weeds that I had walked through and floated onto my legs. It is a deep (50 ft) soft bottom lake. Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera to take any photos. I saw an article on midge fly larvae but none of these were lighter-colored (all very dark) and they were all about 3 mm (0.1-inches) in length and 1mm (0.04-inches) in diameter? I would not call them slender. They didn’t fall off easily but I was able to brush them off. My neighbors say they have never seen this before and we had multiple new (to our lake) watercraft put in at our shore this summer so my main interest/concern would be whether this might be some sort of invasive species.”

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Posted in Interesting Worms Pinworm

Small Red Worms in the Shower

A reader wrote to us recently about worms he found in his shower. The worms are really thin and are of a reddish hue, and they are about two inches long, more or less. With these characteristics taken together, the reader reports that these worms look like particularly small and thin earthworms, just like the ones you see outside after it rains. What are these worms?