“I observed hammerhead flatworms on our patio and in our rock garden yesterday in Nolensville, TN”, states this reader in her submission to us. She asks that we give her some tips as to how to “evict them”.

“My husband mentioned finding a foot-long one over the weekend (he didn’t know what it was at the time). I poured kosher salt flakes around the second one and it did quick business of the invader. It is possible these two generated from the one my husband encountered and had cut the head off – he wasn’t sure if he had encountered a baby snake. Thank you for your resource!”

Our reader did not attach any pictures with her submission, so we will instead include a photo of a hammerhead worm from a previous article, just to give context to their name (which describes their flat, hammer-shaped heads). Some refer to their heads as spade-shaped, which we find a bit more accurate.

In any case, we can indeed give some advice on evicting hammerhead worms. The first thing that our reader should know is that it is very difficult to kill them. One of the hammerhead worm’s many amazing abilities is that it can regenerate its body. No matter how or where you cut a hammerhead worm, the cut-off part will regrow.

What is even more fantastic is that both of the severed parts will regrow, meaning that if you cut a hammerhead worm in half, there will eventually be two worms where there was one. So, our reader’s husband’s beheading of the hammerhead worm was actually counterproductive, as he just ended up making two hammerhead worms.

Either way, we do not advise killing them. They are not harmful to humans; the most they can do is secrete a fluid which will cause stinging and/or irritation of the skin.

What we recommend is sprinkling kosher salt and/or diatomaceous earth over her patio and rock garden, so as to discourage the worms from going there in the first place. Likewise, if their numbers increase, she might want to consider removing any piles of rocks from the rock garden (though we understand that defeats the purpose of a rock garden).

Worms, worm-like creatures, and insects love to take up residence in piles of rocks (and other piles of organic debris), so removing these might help “evict” the hammerhead worms.

To conclude, this has been a brief look on dealing with hammerhead worms. We hope this article proves helpful for our reader, and we wish her the very best!

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