Wanted to share a picture for help identifying. I bought this tropical plant at the local Home Depot and have noticed these tiny worms crawling around in it. I am freaked out and don't know what to do, already sprayed and they came back. Anyone know what they are?



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Annie. Your image was missing a [ at the beginning so I added it to show your picture here.

Thank you!

Looks like centipedes or milipedes. @JrsBugs might be able to help figure out which is which.

Read the following link for some info on both of these in houseplants:

http://garden.org/nga/searchqa...

I think they may be young millipedes. They have legs along their whole length, and fairly short antennae from the look of it? I don't think spraying the surface will help much (what did you spray with?). You could repot the plant with new potting mix (outdoors so the critters can escape). Or if it's reasonably warm where you are during the day, set the plant outside in the shade during part of the day (unless it was in the sun at Home Depot) and see if they leave.

I think Millipede larvae are more likely due to the number of legs, and fairly short antennae as Sue states.

http://bugmugs.org/2011/01/mil...

My vote is for millipedes. If you don't want to use insecticides you can submerge the whole pot under water. The millipedes will pretty much all float to the top of the water and you can dispose of them. You might have to do this every 5-7 days until no more are found. Of course insecticidal drenches will work. Just be sure the label lists millipedes/centipedes.

Thank you everyone for your advice. I dumped the potting soil in the yard so I could let the millipedes go and added new soil. Good as new