Tiny black worms?

I recently cleaned out my snake's water bowl and found a bunch of tiny black worms squirming around in it.
I've had this snake for 6 months now, he's about a year or so old and never had any problems before.
I've looked him over and it doesn't look like he has any mites or ticks.
Does anyone have anything that might help me?

Hmm...do you have any pics? My first thought is mosquito larvae?

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Originally Posted by elbee

Hmm...do you have any pics? My first thought is mosquito larvae?

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I don't, I didn't really think of asking a forum until after I had washed them all down the drain.

Searching google though, the basically looked like this:
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/f15zJgvAfew/hqdefault.jpg

the google picture looks like mosquito larvae

Yeah That's mosquitoes

Do you not change the water every day? They as all animals need fresh water. Don't mean to sound condescending , just an honest question

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Originally Posted by Goggles

Do you not change the water every day? They as all animals need fresh water. Don't mean to sound condescending , just an honest question

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I don't change water every day. There's no need to do it on a daily basis. If it's somehow low I will top up. But they get new water once a week...


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Originally Posted by CORBIN911

I don't change water every day. There's no need to do it on a daily basis. If it's somehow low I will top up. But they get new water once a week...


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This is what I Do too

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Originally Posted by ReagansViolent

This is what I Do too

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me 3 :cool:

it may just be that some mesquitos got into the water. it has happened to me before on a diff animal. just watch your water and see if it was a one time thing or something more sinister. If you see it happen again you might have some mesquitos you have to take care of.

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Originally Posted by Goggles

Do you not change the water every day? They as all animals need fresh water. Don't mean to sound condescending , just an honest question

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I top off his water when it gets low and clean it regularly.
I've been gone the passed two days, however, so I didn't get to clean it before last night.

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Originally Posted by OR_Hippy

it may just be that some mesquitos got into the water. it has happened to me before on a diff animal. just watch your water and see if it was a one time thing or something more sinister. If you see it happen again you might have some mesquitos you have to take care of.

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Will he be alright if it was just a one time thing?
and how would I deal with them if they came back?
So far his water dish still looks clean on inspection.

while as to the health of your snake i can't say as the creature i dealt with was a different species. But if you have it happen again you may just need to relocate the snake and do a bleachwater cleaning of your enclosure. Is what I did and it worked great. Hopefully someone can come on here and give you the answer to the health question. The animal I dealt with drank the water and never had any issues. Heck i have even dranken mesquito water before and been fine so *shrug* :P

How did the wormy things move? Mosquito larvae move in weird twitchy motions, and often sort of fold their bodies mostly in half while moving. When they are holding still, they often sort of attach themselves to the surface of the water at their rear ends and hang more or less straight down into the water. The ones I've seen aren't black, but I can easily imagine there are different species or subspecies or regional variations. Most actual worms move with motions that are smoother and less twitchy, and more like a snake slithering, without any of that folding in half stuff, and also without that attaching themselves to the surface of the water thing.

A quick google showed that most mosquito larvae will hatch in about 48 hours after the eggs are laid in the water. So if you were gone 2 days, it could happen in that time. If you change your water once a week, it could easily happen in that time. The eggs are a sort of raft that floats on the water, and if you are checking daily to make sure the snake didn't foul the water, you'd probably notice.

If it was mosquito larvae, I don't think it will hurt your snake at all. But, they didn't get there without there being a mosquito there, so you might want to try to control that.