Entomology-Filter - Help me identify some worms that reside in my backyard.

September 1, 2010 1:29 PM

Entomology-Filter - Help me identify some worms that reside in my backyard.

In my backyard is our food digester (a Green Cone Solar Digester to be exact). It’s not a composter, it is meant for food to be digested by bacteria. The general use is placing food scraps and other organic stuff inside and bacteria eat it. We have a little shaker of 'bacteria starter' that we use.

Somehow, the worms showed up. They devour most things within 24 hours. It looks to be a hellish environment of hundreds of worms covering the entire bottom of the digester.

My question is: What exactly are these worms and do they do anything but make more worms? Is there a flock of butterflies about to appear?

I warn you NOT to click on these images if you are eating or planning to eat anytime soon or are squeamish or have any other condition that pictures of a redonkulous amount of worms would be bad.

The bottom of the digester.

Close up of the worms.

Thanks!

posted by Argyle to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

I believe what you got there are fly larvae, AKA maggots.
posted by The otter lady at 1:38 PM on September 1, 2010

Yes, those are definitely insect larvae, probably flies. If you're curious which type of insect, just save some of them in a jar (with some of this food) and allow them to pupate. They're definitely not any type of true worm.
posted by crapmatic at 2:05 PM on September 1, 2010

Response by poster: Hrrm, I'm wondering how long the larval stage will be since I have not seen any fly emerge in about 2 weeks. The digester is capped, so I see any flies that might emerge.

They kinda look like mealworms to me, and they are a type of beetle. Any chance the beetle are burrowing their way out?
posted by Argyle at 2:21 PM on September 1, 2010

um. i noticed a bone in that picture, so looked up the solar digester online. well . . . if you put meat products into the great outdoors, the flies will come and make maggots. the only way to absolutely prevent that would be to have a hermetically sealed environment--hell, i'm not even sure about that; you have to open the thing sometimes, right? to put in scraps? well, all you need is one fly, and then you have a whole passel of writhing gross maggots. well, gross in that i wouldn't want to fondle them or slather them on my body or anything. but they're just doing their maggoty job, filling their niche there. here. in this digester. they're digesting. probably not the way you had expected the digestion to happen.
posted by miss patrish at 2:25 PM on September 1, 2010

Mealworms should have pairs of small legs on the second, third and fourth segment (counting from the head). These definitely look like fly larva to me.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:26 PM on September 1, 2010

Soldier fly maggots? More info here, and here. Apparently they love them some compost.
posted by Gator at 2:30 PM on September 1, 2010

maybe blowfly larva?
posted by miss patrish at 2:38 PM on September 1, 2010

Response by poster: Update: This morning as I feed the larva, I noticed a single pupa above the mass. It appears likely that the lifecycle is continuing. I need to grab a pupa and put it into a jar to see what exactly I've been feeding here.
posted by Argyle at 7:32 AM on September 16, 2010