“What kind of worm-like thing is this?” asks Evey in her submission regarding the segmented creature pictured below. “It has antennae and no legs. I found it burrowing in my ear.” To start with, we want to express our sympathy to Evey: it must be an unnerving experience to have any kind of creature burrowing into one’s ear. Now, given that this creature was found on/in Evey, we cannot provide an identification with 100% certainty or accuracy, because there is a chance that the discovery of this organism has medical implications. So, what we can do is direct Evey to some resources were she to grow concerned for her health as a result of finding this creature, and we can also provide an identification that should only be considered if a medical professional does not identify any medical issues (and does identify the worm-like creature as a threat) or if Evey is not concerned for her health as a result of this discovery.

“I found these on the ceiling of my staircase and wanted to know what this is”, is all Niko writes in his submission regarding the black, worm-like creature pictured below. Now, sometimes we do not need a lot of context if the photo provided is good enough. Unfortunately, the photo Niko sent in is quite blurry, and the photo only gets blurrier the more you zoom in. For that reason, we can’t make out any identifying information about the worm other than its color and general shape, and so we will not be able to provide an identification that is certain or accurate. All we can do is provide some educated guesses.

“What type of worm is this?” asks this reader in her submission regarding the big, segmented worm-like creature pictured below. “I recently found three of them in my home. One was on the floor, while the other two were on my bed and on my blankets. It is really creeping me out. And the worst part is I can’t figure out what it actually is. Is it a worm or a baby snake?” In this instance, it would have been really helpful to have a video of the creature, as that would help us determine what this is. The picture alone is unfortunately not enough for us to give a definitive answer to our reader’s question.

“I found this worm-like thing in my daughter’s bathroom”, writes Bryan about the light brown creature pictured below. “This is the second one we found in a week. It has legs, so it’s not a “worm”, but I’m trying to figure out how they are getting into her bathroom. Can you identify it?” Firstly, we want to thank Bryan for the excellent photo he sent in: the clarity of the photo allows us to see the tiny legs he is talking about, as well as antennae sprouting from its head. Secondly, we can definitely identify this creature. It turns out that Bryan has found himself a millipede.

“Last night we found a small (maybe two inches long) worm-like thing squiggling in our living room”, states this reader in his submission. “Is this a worm? Parasite? Small snake?” he asks about the creature, which he describes as “charcoal-to-blackish grey.”

“I found this under my bed when moving it. It was dried up and about 1-2 inches long”, states this reader about the blackish-brown organism pictured below. “Can you let me know what type of worm this is, if it is one?”

“It was dark and had many legs”, said this man. living in a “hotel-like apartment complex”, about something he found curled up on his floor. The creature in question is an elongated shape, has multiple pairs of legs sprouting from each section of its segmented body, and is a dark brown/black in color.

A reader of ours recently sent in this image of a cluster of brown worms he found outside. The worms appear brown in color, with a segmented body, and many of them are curled up into a ‘C’ shape.

One of our readers asked about the impact of “thin black worms with many legs” on her plants. We believe she is probably dealing with millipedes, and that she shouldn’t worry because they are typically beneficial.

One of our readers recently sent us a photo of a worm-like organism she noticed crawling on her bedroom ceiling….

We believe the creatures our reader found in his bathroom are probably millipedes. Millipedes are harmless and not usually classified as household pests, which means they don’t cause damage or destruction inside a home, so our reader has nothing to worry about!

We aren’t sure if the creature our reader found on her bed is a moth larva or beetle larva, but we are confident that it isn’t a carpet beetle larvae. We think changing her sheets and washing her bedding is a good idea, but we don’t think she needs to begin an intense cleaning regime or purchase a new mattress!

The images of a nearly transparent worm with spots one of our readers sent presented an interesting challenge. Two of…

One of our readers has shared a photo of a dark-colored cylindrical worm with antennae she found in the bathroom….

A reader wrote to us through the All About Worms Facebook page about something that “looks like an earthworm but it has feelers.” By “feelers,” we presume the reader means antennae, and the picture the reader sent along with her question does in fact show a skinny, worm-like creature with what appear to be antennae. Earthworms do not have antennae, as the reader indirectly implies, so we think she might have actually found some type of millipede for reasons we will now outline.

We received a question from a reader recently via the All About Worms Facebook page about what we think is a millipede or centipede in her shower. The question has a bit of a backstory, so we’ll quote the relevant part of the reader’s message and then move on to address her concerns: “I had an episode of Vertigo yesterday and I thew up in the trash can. I cleaned the trash can out in the shower. So I am kinda freaking out thinking that it might have been inside me! Or hopefully it is just a coincidence that is was in there.” The reader is first of all wondering what she found, and she is also wondering if the creature has its origin in her body.

Yesterday we received one of the simplest questions we have ever been sent. The reader submitted a photo of a creature and asked only if it is a centipede or millipede. There were no complicating factors, so he was basically looking for a one-word answer. We think our reader found a millipede, and in what follows we explain why. In doing so, we will outline the difference between centipedes and millipedes, providing a concise guide that will help you determine whether you have found a millipede or centipede.

A reader wrote to us recently about a worm-like creature “squirming in my coffee carafe while rinsing with water.” The reader was alarmed by this because she is “truly phobic about worms,” and she also reports that she thinks what she found is a millipede. For reasons we will come to shortly, she might have actually found a centipede, but in truth she wasn’t particularly concerned about what she found. She was more fixated on where the centipede (or millipede) came from, and she also wanted to know if there could be more and how she should eliminate them. We’ll try out best to identify and address all her concerns below.

We received a question from a reader in Kauai, Hawaii about a creature with “little legs and antennas” that she found in a pile of tree mulch. (For the record, in the biological realm, the plural of “antenna” is “antennae,” which is confusing because for other uses of “antenna,” like for radios, the plural form is “antennas.”) The reader asked us for an identification, and we are virtually certain he found millipedes. Below we offer a few more details about millipedes and explain why we think this is what our reader found.

We received a very interesting question from a reader a little while ago about what appears to be a centipede or millipede (but probably a centipede). The millipede/centipede is long, a tan or brownish color, and has large antennae. The reader sent a picture of the creature, and also sent a picture of a tree that has been damaged, but in a highly intricate and patterned way. The tree almost looks like a maze or puzzle because the bark is covered with interconnected shapes. The reader was wondering what kind of creature she found, and she was also wondering if whatever it is was responsible for the artistic tree damage.