Common Earthworm Lumbricus terrestris, a top down view against a black background. Ed Marshall hide caption
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The Old World hookworm is an intestinal parasite. The image above was taken by a scanning electron micrograph and was color-enhanced. The worm's actual size ranges from 0.03 inches to 0.3 inches. David Scharf/Science Source hide caption
Okello Noel lives in Kibega Villiage, Pader District, Uganda. In 2007, at age 13, he lost his sight to river blindness. Kay Hinton/Courtesy of The Carter Center hide caption
A farm worker collects cucumbers in a greenhouse in Russia. Mac Callaham, a research ecologist at the USDA Forest Service, says William the Worm likely met its fate in "a greenhouse scenario." Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Some people in the global health sector call him "Bono with a bow tie." Dr. Peter Hotez in his office at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Katie Hayes Luke for NPR hide caption
This is what's called a "specimen lot" — a large mason jar holding smaller vials of parasitic worms gathered by a researcher in 1927. The Smithsonian collection has more than 120,000 specimen lots. Kristin Adair/NPR hide caption
#NPRWormWeek: Worms Are Bottled Up In The Smithsonian's Crawl Space
The dwarf tapeworm, or Hymenolepis nana, is the most common tapeworm in humans. It's 2 inches long at most. Courtesy Peter Olson, Natural History Museum, London hide caption