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While I was repotting my rosemary, I discovered several, fairly large, worm-like creatures (see images below; I found more after taking the picture, but they look the same as the other ones). For reference: the biggest ones in the image are about 4cm in length while crawling forward.

Does anyone know what kinds of creatures these are? And do I need to worry about them? Considering their size, I'd imagine they have to be harmful in some way or another. Unless they're earthworms, but they don't quite look like the earthworms I've seen before, and even if they are, I don't think they'd thrive in a pot without harming the plant. Either way, I doubt that I found all of them, much less their eggs (whatever those might look like).

For reference: I live in southern Germany, and the pot is inside my apartment in front of the south window (though I doubt that matters for the worms).

single creature in close-up multiple creatures

Addendum: turns out one of the worms looks significantly different from the others, instead of just being a smaller version. Here's the image:

enter image description here

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  • I'd recommend adding a picture with more light on the animal in order to make it easier for people to identify it very specifically (but it looks like a caterpillar of some kind to me). Caterpillars eat leaves.
    – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx
    Jul 24, 2021 at 22:45
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    @Brōtsyorfuzthrāx well, it was buried in the ground, and I've never seen a caterpillar on the leaves. Other than that, it very much does move like a caterpillar, but everything else doesn't fit. I'll add more pictures tomorrow - it's 4 am here by now, and I don't have any particularly bright artificial lights for illumination purposes.
    – PixelMaster
    Jul 25, 2021 at 2:05

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I found out elsewhere that they seem to be crane fly larvae, which fits the images google spits out.

This makes sense, crane flies are fairly common where I live (close to the Rhine), and I remember spotting one in my apartment a few months back, despite fly screen on the windows. That's probably the one responsible for these larvae, or maybe it just came from the same pot as them.

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