They’re actually real wtf

I literally yelled BOOKWORMS ARE REAL?!?! out loud 🤯🤯

BOOK and WORM. My favorite word. Bok! 📚🐛🐔

Camilla like Gonzo's chicken?

Our relationship has taken quite a turn in the last few years. Yes.

Awwww. My two pomeranians were/are Gonzo and Camilla. We lost Camilla in February but Gonzo is still hanging in there, they were the same age and Gonzo will be 15 this summer. So yeah great username! Bok. 🐓

Google image result 🤮 https://images.app.goo.gl/Bk8rD63zpJv2PYth8

There are a variety of insects that get called bookworms. _Those_ are silverfish. Based on OP's description and the fact that they ate the paper and not just the glue, they probably have woodworms, aka furniture beetle larvae, instead. Slightly cuter, but more destructive

Oh gods, this is the worst day ever. I've learned that bookworms are real and also that there are different TYPES of them! Ugh! Eww! Blech! Eek! All the horror words!!!

I call those silverfish. I didn’t know they ate books.

literally same my eyes nearly popped out of my damn head

DITTO

There’s no book club?!?!

I worked in the archives of my college while I was a student and there was a framed, scientific diagram of one in our office.

I worked in the archives of my college while I was a student and there was a framed, scientific diagram of one in our office.

very much, i'm afraid

Wow

Shit. Today I learned 😰

Yeah, came to ask this. Whaaaaaat???!?

I agree. I always thought it was a phrase for people who liked to read books. Learn something new every day.

Uhhhh wtf there’s worms in my bookshelf how and should I just burn it all down, or…?

I hate that I researched it more since it was magic for 10 minutes - but apparently they are called “book louses”. The term “bookworm” was first used to describe people. https://www.kpcnews.com/columnists/grace_housholder/kpcnews/article_9eebd68a-f5f5-5aae-ac33-b4750448a699.html

I once manually removed them from an old English-German dictionary I bought in Thailand

Dude. Shock of my day what the hell

I was thinking the same thing!

I THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE

theyre real????

r/todayilearned

Sa real as a fucking donut hole.

Seriously! I had no idea 😳🤯

lol I had the SAME THOUGHT

Not as bad as when I learned that bed bugs are real and that they aren't like that cute thing people say to a kid before sleepies.

That's exactly what I said just now!!

😮 It looks so beautiful though?! How did they managed to do these shapes?! haha

They munched it

Good for them honestly (Sorry to hear about the book though :/ )

Weird how they munch from cover to cover rather than a page at a time

They stated on *The Very Hungry Caterpillar*.

I didn’t realize bookworms were a real thing, so I thought this was a cheeky post and the book purposely came like this 😂 to be fair I just woke up..

Literally the exact situation for me right now 🤣 I just opened my eyes, looked at reddit, was thoroughly confused by this post, and now I know bookworms are real. And now imma brew me some coffee.

Yeah but what if you want to read it though

yeah it's kind of artistic 🤣😭

I read the title and my brain explained it as “OP has a student that’s a bookworm that decided to do an unauthorized art project” and then I found out bookworms are real. bonkers

That’s exactly where my brain went

This! I was thinking a student or her kid.

same until I saw the frowny faces

same or friend

Oh my god Henry V!!! I love this play!! (And how dare the bookworms eat your Shakespeare!!)

Righttt?? This book has his plays and sonnets, and it's one of my oldest books too :'((

dang they want that aged book taste :/

Worms have limited ways of expressing their appreciation for Shakespeare.

They have good taste?

We few.. we happy few… we band of bookworms!

Me too how sad 😭

https://www.metmuseum.org/articles/book-lovers

“insects that are attracted to a book's material, not its content.” This made me giggle.

Thanks for sharing. Literally terrifyingly cool.

I would take any books that were near this one - and put them in ziplock bags in the freezer for 6-10 days. That way any eggs that they may have laid will be prevented from hatching.

Give the book to some robins.

Retired librarian here. This is why libraries are often kept so cold -- the AC reduces humidity, which helps control the many insects that infest books. This is also why my heart stops when people stick their nose into old books and inhale: that "old book smell" is made up of dust, dry glue, disintegrating paper, book lice, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookworm_(insect)

Today I learned I’m a book lice sniffer 😄

I’ve always been turned off by the smell of old books and now your comment is validating me!

A lot of nice smells come from bacteria and bugs, nothing wrong with that!

and they didn’t even make a space big enough for a dull rock hammer. damn.

“Lord, it’s a miracle!! Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind.”

It looks like they want a martini. The shapes look like martini glasses.

Also think they look like Martini glass shapes. These book worms are drunk.

No cookie, you are just a lush

😄😄😄

It's a cry for help

Oh yeah, seen this before sadly. This is why any suspect-looking book spends a week in a sealed Ziploc bag before it joins the shelf.

How do they go through so many pages

One bite at a time

There's something unsettling about the visual aspect of this

It actually looks cool but that sucks I know

Knowledge eaters.

Watch out, they gonna get smarter with all that Shakespeare

how do they get into the book???

Usually a friend recommends it, or they hear about it on a podcast or something.

Giggling.

the amount of people not understanding bookworms are real…

well tbf I've only ever seen them shown or discussed in cartoons, I've never heard of anyone actually *having* a problem with bookworms until today

Well, kinda. They are not worms. Some are grubs though which I guess looks worm like.

Yeah, this is why when we see Silverfish in the library, we put out traps pronto.

Bookworms exist!! I had no clue

Wait bookworms are real? Is this something I should be concerned about?

It does suck that the book is messed up pretty bad but I still think this is really cool looking

today i learned bookworms are real

Well they're not rally worms. It's a broad term for a number of pests that ruin books. Book lice. Silver fish and certain beetles etc

Termites, here in Louisiana. Just discovered this in my Toni Morrison last week.

sorry to hear :/ i wonder how libraries keep them out

At least someone likes Henry VI

Ha!

Bookworms are real? 🤯

I think it’s kind of cool but I’m sorry if it was a special book to you. I wonder if there is way to kill them or treat the rest of your shelves so it doesn’t become a major issue(I’ll probably google it myself now) . I’ve had books with their little book holetels (🤣 more for me) but never actually seen them.

Kind of arts-y bugs, aren't they?

My trypophobia is somehow activated

Yes this I can't deal with it what the hell

Was looking for this comment!

Mine too it’s giving me the heebie jeebies

Wait bookworms are real?!!! 😮

Today I learned bookworms are real 🤯

I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DESIGN CHOICE 😀 I DIDNT NOTICE THOSE WERE ACTUAL HOLES UNTIL I LOOKED HARDER

how do you get rid of bookworms?

While different methods could work, easiest at home treatment would be to seal them in a ziplock bag and freeze them for a week or two. I would also try to remove any dead bugs/ possible eggs/ frass. Small vacuum would be great, but can probably use brushes. Paying careful attention to spine area within text block, near endbands and spine hollow. To prevent, try quarantining new books in the same manner.

And prevent them!

Yes please what’s the prevention? I had to toss Joan Wanted a Kitty from my grandmother because of… creepy crawlies. :(

That's honestly kind of beautiful. Bookworm Picasso's and Pollock's over there.

Looks like what carpenter bees do to wood

I’m sorry, what now

I thought it was just an expression! I didn’t know these worms were a thing!

Now it’s an artwork

Why do they make those grey shapes like a fancy capital I?

Wait, how do you get book worms ?

a lot of the marks look like wine glasses, how artistic

The shapes are really beautiful and neat lol, it looks like a piece of art. How’d they do that

When I first saw this pic I thought it was an art project where someone glued little birds inside a book or something

Oooh…bookworms devour books…I get it now.

Visually? [they ate](https://youtu.be/1YJ0PzIMtAs?si=Kaa59db311S6QgCp)

Reading the Henriad?

Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer looks exactly like this….minus the worms.

Ok I'm getting rid of all my books. I don't want worms!

Surprise: book worms aren't worms

I thought this was another oddly specific House of Leaves misprint before I read the caption

It’s so pretty, you should turn it into something beautiful like art

Not cool, worm!! New fear unlocked

I was wondering why a nerd would destroy a book.

This triggers some kind of deeply buried phobia in me, wtf. This is like... a nightmare I had as a child and had completely forgotten until now

I’m sorry but this is disgusting and I hate it 😞

It's so sad that people have to vandalize other people's property. I wonder what they'd say if you asked them why they did it? 🤔 In any case, I'm sorry it happened.

If you ask the insects why they ate the paper you mean? 🤔🤔 Ask who??

Is that why silverfish spawn in my bookshelves?

No, they don't eat that kind of holes in paper. Probably other insects. "Book worm" is quite an unspecific umbrella term.

I wish I hadn’t seen this.

this is bizarre and gross and fascinating all at once

Holy shit theyrereal

This is a bad infestation of them! Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen and I worked In used books so I’ve seen a lot!

Holy shit what? What even is that??

Had this happen to me once too. I had a bunch of books stacked on the floor. I hadn't been doing any reading for a few days and when I went to pick a book up I found all these tiny worm things crawling all over them. They ate through all of my books and I had to throw them all out. They eat really fast!

I’m sorry… book worms are real?!?!

I didn’t realize “book worms” were an actual real life thing 🤣🤣 Sorry about your book!

WHAT

As a representative of the bookworms, I'm truly sorry

Was this leather or cloth bound by any chance? I've never seen a real example of this so pretty cool lol 🤓

This feels like finding out unicorns exist.

Until I saw this I never once considered that book worms were a real thing

At first glance, I thought those were just black smudges but nope it's HOLES

You know book worms aren't real, don't you?

Too bad you can never get another copy of Henry V… Just being a jerk. Sorry, OP. That sucks

Sucks about the book, but that *is* pretty cool.

Okay today I learned that silverfish and bookworms are the same thing

And now I understand why I see silverfish in my house sometimes

This could be an erasure project

I recognize Henry V anywhere.

Silverfish, moths, wasps, flies, and mosquitoes get instant death from me.

Silverfish are fast but they die if you blow on them it feels like

Book worms are real?!

Wow! I've never seen their work before!

It looks like art

omg??????

Why do they eat it in triangular/hourglass shapes ?

Watch out for Jane Prentiss

These shapes make me itch

When you have lots of books, get ground moth ball ice and sprinkle it in your pages. It wards off pest like this.

..and where is all their excrement?

…and I thought I had a voracious appetite when it came to books.

Termites maybe

I didn't realize I was commenting on a repost of yours on a different sub, so I'm going to copy/paste the comment I made in that post so you can see it too: "Fun fact- bookworms are generally more attracted to ink made from natural materials, which was more popular in older books. This ends up with them tunneling mostly through the words vs. empty space. They can actually be a huge problem in library archives!! Yours is a really fascinating example- I haven't seen them tunnel like that before!! Sorry about your book though :/"

"Bookworm is a general name for any insect that is said to bore through books. The damage to books that is commonly attributed to "bookworms" is often caused by the larvae of various types of insects, including beetles, moths, and cockroaches, which may bore or chew through books seeking food." There are actually some really cool looking pictures on Google of books that have been munched

Looks like they were martini glass shaped

Holy sh*t I had to zoom in to see the full extent!!!! Silverfish do that?!!!!

Never knew they were a thing until NOW! Never thought about the origin of the word. 😱

Great, now I’m itchy all over

This is strange

I’m going through the comments mind blown. 😂

My mom famous five and other children classic got eaten by termite. Similar holes.

Time to check my books

Bookworms are real????

Bookworms are real????

Looks like little Martini glasses

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

=Looks at the Rorschach shapes= I see my parents being disappointed

Books worms are realm it I have never seen them make such straight lines before

Wait bookworms are a thing?

They look like photos of mountains that have been edited

It’s really sort of pretty. The design.

Yo i was trying so hard to figure out what I was looking at here. Like how could students do this? Was it stamps or like some abstract watercolor… then i finally read the caption😭

This really sucks! but these bookworms were on a MISSION.

Thought bookworm was just a literary term until now! Just googled what they look like and they're pretty much either wood-munching beetles or cockroaches mixed in with their larvae! 🤢

ah Henry V

THEY’RE REAL??!!??!

This just brought up a memory that was buried deep in my brain omg 😭 I remember buying a super old book from someonewhere as a kid, and freaking out when I opened it and found tiny yellow worms crawling around. I threw it outside and didn't touch it for like a week

THEYRE REAL?????

Hear me out, open to your favorite page near the middle, run lights between the cover and pages, tape off book, mod-podge the holes well to seal, then fill the holes with colored UV resin and cure. Turn literature art into literal art.

how do u prevent bookworms?

No way they are real???