Yes, it’s another one of those questions.
I live in an apartment in San Francisco, Ca. Lately I’ve been noticing larva in the bathroom. They usually travel solo, being found every other day. Let’s see, they are less than a centimeter long, are dark brown at the ends and dirty white in the middle. They look almost fuzzy. I don’t have a camera to take a pic and they are so small that it would probably come in blurry anyways. If someone can tell me what i am dealing with that would be great.
More details please. Legs, mode of travel, width. Larva doesn’t really say much, after all ant lions, caterpillars and maggots are all larvae.
If you have a scanner you can place one directly on the scanner plate (on a plastic sheet of course) and photograph it at high resolution that way.
lar·va Audio pronunciation of “larva” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lärv)
n. pl. lar·vae (-v) or lar·vas
- The newly hatched, wingless, often wormlike form of many insects before metamorphosis.
There really isn’t much to describe. I guess i can add that yes, it is wormlike. The fact that they are so small makes descriptions hard beyond shape and color. At first i thought it was maggots, but these have brown coloring on them. ALso they are just found chilling on the wall or floor. They move very slowly too. My apartment is clean and food is properly stored so I’m not sure where they are coming from.
Could it possibly be this? Specifically the pic of the larval stage
It could be some species of fruit fly. I’d say, if they’re still showing up, walk some down (in a jar) to your closest University or Community College entomology department. A lot of colleges will have their students identify stuff for free as practice. You could also try the county’s weights and measures department. I had a job at Solono county W&M a couple of summers ago in their pest detection program. We would help people for free as a way of keeping tabs on new pests.
Hope that helps.
More likely a bathroom/filter fly larva. They would live in the drain goop of your shower.
Can’t find a good picture of one though and I’ve personally only seen adults ( they’re very small and oddly moth-like in appearance with rounded, stubby wings ).
- Tamerlane
Key differences than the pics Pullet linked to. At the ends of the wormlike larva, it is dark brown. Also those maggots looked slimy whiel this looked fuzzy.
The strange thing is i haven’t seen any adult bugs. Maybe next one i find (larva or adult), i’ll ziplock and bring to the local colleges.
Tamerlane
Thef lies you mention are also called moth flies. I found this pic: larva
Maybe it is the magnified image, but the ones i have look fatter. For the moment i’ll assume that is what i have. Guess i need to nuke the drains.
While nuking the drains probably won’t hurt, I’d still recommend getting the grubs identified. Having lived in a variety of crummy neighborhoods, I can testify that, no matter how clean I kept my apartment, bugs would creep in from next door. If you’ve got something quietly rotting away in the baseboards, no amount of drain nukage will help.
Just don’t want you to waste a lot of time and effort 
I’m wondering if they might be nematodes; these are apparently not uncommon in bathrooms.
A few larvae roughly answering to the desciption in the OP fell into my bathroom a year ago or so. I figured they must have fallen through a ventilationshaft, that ends on our( flat) roof. As there is always a bit of organic matter piled in corners on the roof it makes sense that I was dealing with Tamerlanes’s Moth Flies, aka Sewer Flies or Filter Flies. (Thanks Tamerlane, I had been wondering about them!)
The Latin name is Psychoda alternata.
I found this link helpful:
Here’s a picture of a moth fly (psychodid) larva.
No Mangetout , I’m pretty sure these aren’t nematodes.
I want to say that these things are moth fly larva, but none of the pics truly match what i got. Next time i see one, I’m keeping it as a a specimen.
Bummer !
My unexpected guests didn’t look like the pic supplied by TwoTrouts, either. Too bad, 'cause those woudl have been perfectly innocent useful beasties, and not indicative of low houskeeping standards, too.
I’m not sure how my larvae looked, it’s well over a year ago I saw them, but I think they looked a bit like the upper beastie in this pic. The shape in that pic more then the colour. How about yours, Ludicrous?
I’ve done a Google picture search for “larvae fly”. (warning: not for the easily grossed out by natural creepy crawlies!) Ludicrous, do you recognize anything?