Hate to ask...worm advice?

This morning I found a skinny worm or worm-like beast, about 1 to 1-1/2 inches long, grayish white, inching along in front of my fridge. I saw no others or spilled food around there. I checked two boxes of "open" pasta, which was in the cabinet to the left (and a quick check of the cabinet itself) and saw nothing. We just mopped and vacuumed a couple of days ago. What could this critter be? Please tell me it came in with my veggie CSA! I had all the veggies out on the table in the center of the kitchen for an hour or so and my fridge is loaded. Thanks for any advice!

Did it have any legs? I assume that it is squashed now, so a photo is out of the question!

Jen

I couldn't see legs. They may have been underneath. It moved like this: the butt pushed forward and the rest of the body followed along in a wave. As far as I could tell, the midsection did not rise off the ground. It is indeed squashed.

I'm stumped! My guess is that it was some sort of arthropod (caterpillar, millipede...). Was it dry/crunchy on the outside rather than slimy? Antennae?

It doesn't sound like any household pest I can think of, so it is probably nothing to worry about (as far as I can tell).

Jen

If you have an organic CSA box (or even one that uses minimal pesticides) it's more than likely that your critter came from there. That is, after all, one of the points of choosing organic: it doesn't kill the creepy-crawlies.

JenM wrote:I'm stumped! My guess is that it was some sort of arthropod (caterpillar, millipede...). Was it dry/crunchy on the outside rather than slimy? Antennae?

It was soft, not crunchy, and no antennae.

After looking at page after page of online bug files since this morning, I'm sufficiently creeped out. It looked a little like the sandhill cutworm in this photo, but very skinny and smooth.
http://www.sunflowernsa.com/media/galle ... egoryID=10

How did it taste?

Take a look here.

Geo

Mhays wrote:If you have an organic CSA box (or even one that uses minimal pesticides) it's more than likely that your critter came from there. That is, after all, one of the points of choosing organic: it doesn't kill the creepy-crawlies.

I agree. We feed any errant bugs or slugs to our pet turtle, so she gets to benefit from the CSA also. As my wierd Uncle Fred used to say, "if the bugs don't want it, neither do I."

Jen

Geo wrote:Take a look here.

Geo

I'm guessing Geo is right & it's an inch worm. Next time just place it back outside. They don't hurt anything. Plus, like Geo's link they are cute. Didn't anyone else have to sing Inchworm when they were kids in chorus?

Nope, not an inchworm. It didn't raise it's midsection off the ground. It just pushed forward from one end to the other.

It tasted fine, by the way, like chicken.

Here's the little bastard!


I found this second one just now, but this time it was by kitty's food bowl, way across the room. I'm spending this evening cleaning out all my cabinets and moving the fridge. It had little legs I'm pretty sure, but they were so tiny it was impossible to count. The belly was white, and it was immediately able to right itself when tipped over. Ideas?


The Showdown (bug is curled up at this point).

Not sure, but looks like a mealworm to me. Get out the frying pan!

Do any of your near neighbors keep reptiles or other such creatures, or are they avid fishermen? Mealworms have been known to infest pantries (they eat grains, as their name implies) but since they are commonly found in bait shops or pet stores for feeding insectivores, I'd suspect that first. To be on the safe side, check your flour, oatmeal, and rice and other cereals.

I like this site for help identifying pests I don't know. You can post pictures and an entymologist will offer suggestions as to what it might be.

One additional thought...have you seen greyish, tanish moths in the house? Clothes moths are white and meal moths have striped wings. If you've got moths and you've seen a couple of larvae, you might have a grain infestation and I recommend closely inspecting your pantry AND your dry pet food storage. Here's a link to the page on Indian Meal Moths.

edited to add info on meal moths

I cleaned out all the cabinets with food in them and found only one little critter in my flour, but otherwise everything looked okay. But I tossed a lot of other stuff, like boxes of barley covered with nothing but plastic wrap, and placed all the okay-looking boxes of rice/semolina flour/pasta in ziploc baggies. I saw nothing today! But I'm keeping vigil. The cleaning had a plus side: I reorganized so things make more sense and realized I now had 2-1/2 new empty shelves!

Pie Lady wrote:I cleaned out all the cabinets with food in them and found only one little critter in my flour, but otherwise everything looked okay. But I tossed a lot of other stuff, like boxes of barley covered with nothing but plastic wrap, and placed all the okay-looking boxes of rice/semolina flour/pasta in ziploc baggies. I saw nothing today! But I'm keeping vigil. The cleaning had a plus side: I reorganized so things make more sense and realized I now had 2-1/2 new empty shelves!

lol! true that you'd have to empty everything out to flush them bugs out. yeah whenever i find bugs infesting my house i usually just run up and get fumigation toronto . you'll be surprised how much bugs are crawling here in canada

stop at Andersonville farmers market there is a worm lady, Wednesdays at 4pm, I am not sure if it is still on.