“What is this thin, small, brow/tan, almost greenish inch worm?” writes this reader about the worm-like organism pictured below. “Found it dangling off my cap on a some sort of thread I think, it moves pretty fast. From the US.” Thanks to our reader’s excellent photo and video, but mostly the fact that she names the organism herself, we can confirm that this is indeed an inchworm. Inchworms are any caterpillar of a group of moth species found in North America. They are all characterized by their number and placement of appendages: legs at the front and back, but not in the middle. Due to how the legs are positioned on the body, the inchworm moves as it does in the video: by reaching for something to grab onto with its prolegs, then arching its back while the hind legs catch up.

Small, white worm-like creatures were found by this reader in his Washington home. The worms were found next to his dog, who was lying on a chair, and the worms moved by “contracting and stretching its body.”

A clear, white worm was found in this woman’s rug in Vegreville, Alberta, and she asks that we identify it.

Today we responded to a reader’s message about two worms she discovered. Due to the limited information provided, we were unable to identify these worms or fully answer our reader’s question.

We recently received a question from a reader who found a “very tiny and almost transparent white” worm in her soil. She sent a picture along with her question, and this does indeed show a very small worm or worm-like creature that is white and kind of transparent (or technically translucent, we suppose). The reader was only trying to identify the tiny white worm in her soil, so we’ll focus on identification and leave the matter there.

We recently received a question through the All About Worms Facebook page about a white worm in the top soil of a reader’s garden. The white worm (or potentially white larva) is about an inch long (2.5 centimeters) and is fairly skinny. The reader was only looking for an identification, so we’ve concentrated our efforts on this matter. What could a one-inch white worm or larva in the garden be?

A reader wrote to us with a question about a few small white worms she found in her bathroom. Actually, no question was explicitly asked, but she clearly wants to know what she found, also wants to get rid of the worms in her bathroom. She reports that the worms “creep me out,” and also that she has children and doesn’t want the worms in her home, like basically every person who ever has or will exist. What kind of small white worms did our reader find in her bathroom, and how might she get rid of them?

Recently we received yet another question about tiny white worms with black heads. This time, the small worms (or more likely larvae) were in a swarm on the ceiling. There are probably at least a hundred worms or larvae in the picture we were sent, and they are all in a small area of the ceiling, tightly packed together. The reader indicated that we had tentatively identified similar creatures in the past as moth fly larvae, and was wondering if the small white worms (or larvae) with black heads that he found are moth fly larvae.

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.

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?

A little while ago a reader wrote to us about some white worms with a green spot that “appeared out of nowhere” in his basement. The reader got rid of many of the worms in the basement by taking them outside, but when he got back there were even more worms than there were before. The reader said the creatures in the basement looked like inchworms, but he didn’t seem very confident in this suggestion. He also mentioned that it was raining out when he made his discovery, and thought this might have something to do with the worms’ sudden appearance in the basement. What might the white worms with green spots in our reader’s basement be?

A reader sent us a good, if slightly disturbing, picture of a large group of white worms with black heads. The worms with black heads have congregated around an unidentified mass on the wall, which we presume is serving as some sort of food source. The wall on which the worms were found is in the family room of our reader’s home, and so not in the more common places one finds pest worms (like a pantry or toilet). The reader didn’t seem particularly alarmed by what she found, merely asking if we have “any ideas” about the small white worms with black heads. We’ll therefore approach this as a simple matter of worm identification and largely focus on this matter alone. What are the small white worms with black heads that our reader is finding?

We received a question from a reader a while ago about a small black and white worm he found in a carton. Actually, he didn’t ask a question so much as write us a statement, which went as follows: “worm found in sealed carton the color was black and white and about a half inch long.” (That’s the entire email.) We presume the reader found the worm in some sort of food carton because we don’t know any other carton one would likely find a worm in. (A milk carton? A cigarette carton? These seem like less inviting places for a worm.) As you can see, the reader didn’t directly ask any question, but we’re assuming he’s curious what he found. So, what is the black and white worm that our reader found in a (food) carton?

A reader wrote to us recently about some small white worms on his skin. The reader immediately indicates that his skin problem appears to be caused by a small white worm, meaning that he might not be dealing with a worm at all. Indeed, we think our reader is not actually experiencing a problem associated with any sort of worm. Rather, he may be experiencing symptoms associated with scabies, an infection caused by mites that is sometimes known as the “seven-year itch.” Below we outline why we think the small white worms affecting our reader’s skin are not in fact small white worms, but are rather mites that are causing scabies.

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.

We received a straightforward worm-identification question from a reader a little while back: “what were the little white worms that I found in the morning when I came downstairs?” This (paraphrased) question is simple in a superficial sort of way because it only asks one thing, but the lack of any details (or an accompanying picture) makes it almost impossible to answer. The short question gives rise to a dozen more: What exactly constitutes a little white worm? Is the worm an inch, a half an inch, a quarter of an inch long? Is it skinny (relative to its length) too? Is it actually white, or is it an off-white color, perhaps with some minimally noticeable body marking (faint stripes, for instance)? The list goes on. So, we might not be able to correctly identify the little white worms our reader found, but what we can do is put forward a few possibilities, possibilities that are relevant to anyone who finds some small white worms in their house.

Evidently, readers are concerned about their pecan trees, as our very last article was about how Catawba worms affect pecan trees, and now we are charged with answering a question about a pecan tree infested with large white worms. The reader is wondering what the white worms are, and he is also keen to remove the pest. So, we have a classic identification-and-removal question: what are white worms on our reader’s pecan trees, and how can he get rid of them?

A little while ago we received a question from a reader about some worms she is finding in a pond. The pond worms are white and brown, although the proportion of each color varies from worm to worm; some worms are only slightly brown, with white serving as the worm’s main color, whereas others are almost entirely brown. (In any case, this is what we gathered. The email is a little hard to decipher; fractions like 3/4 are invoked to describe the worm’s colors, which is helpful, but it’s not always clear what color the fractions are referring to.) The reader also mentioned that the worms are small, in the 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch (6-12 mm) range. So, our reader is dealing with some small brown and white worms, and the question of course is: what are they?