Wormy

If you were looking for the article about the episode, then see "Wormy."

If you were looking for the article about the book, then see Wormy (book).

Character

Gallery

Appearances

Wormy
General information
Residence:	Texas (formerly) Sandy's treedome, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean (currently)
Physical appearance
Gender:	Male
Color:	Light green (formerly) Black, light orange and light brown (currently)
Eye color:	Black (formerly) Light green and red (currently)
Classification:	Monarch butterfly
Series information
First appearance:	"Wormy"
Latest appearance:	"Escape from Beneath Glove World"

Wormy (also known as Inchworm on its model sheet) is one of Sandy's pets who first appears in the "Wormy."

Description

Caterpillar

As a caterpillar, Wormy is a light shade of green with black eyes and white spots. His design resembles that of an inchworm.

Butterfly

As a butterfly, Wormy is dark orange with black stripes and black on the outermost parts of his wings; this design resembles that of a monarch butterfly. In Wormy, all the seacreatures thought it was a monster.

In "Goons on the Moon," he was redesigned to have spots instead of stripes.

In "Squirrel Jelly" and "Escape from Beneath Glove World," his spots are red.

Biography

Wormy's model sheet.

At some point, Sandy bought or found him in Texas. Sometime later, she took Wormy to her home in Bikini Bottom.

He later turns into a butterfly overnight.

Role in series

"Wormy"

When SpongeBob and Patrick are pet sitting for Sandy, they and Wormy play games such as hide-and-seek and tag. However, overnight, Wormy quickly metamorphoses into a butterfly. SpongeBob and Patrick return but naively believe the butterfly is a monster and ate Wormy when in reality it was Wormy. To save the town, SpongeBob and Patrick cause mass panic throughout and spread the news about Wormy all over town, all because the fish have never seen a butterfly before.

After Sandy returns from her trip and captures Wormy in a jar, the Bikini Bottomites celebrate, prompting Sandy to believe it was just because they missed her that much and she should leave town more often.

"Goons on the Moon"

Wormy is seen flying in space among asteroids and other pieces of junk.

"Squirrel Jelly"

He makes a cameo where he sits on Sandy's fingers.

"Escape from Beneath Glove World"

Wormy appears from episode's opening where he sits on a megaphone, but commentator's shout blows his away.

Trivia

Poster of Wormy in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (lower middle).

• In The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, a poster of Wormy in his butterfly form can briefly be seen in Sandy's treedome. The image of Wormy on the poster looks very similar to the one seen on the "Beware" fliers made by SpongeBob and Patrick.

Horsefly close-ups in SpongeBob and Bill Nye the Science Guy

An image of the horsefly closeup shown in the episode "Wormy."

A real monarch butterfly face closeup for comparison.

• When Wormy's face is viewed as a close-up in butterfly form, a stock footage of a horse fly is used instead of an actual butterfly.
  • This live-action insect footage used throughout the episode "Wormy" are all royalty-free, and owned by Oxford Scientific Films. All of the footage can be found on Getty Images.
  • The infamous horsefly close-up footage was also used in the Bill Nye the Science Guy episode "Insects."
• As mentioned above, when Wormy's face is viewed as a close-up in butterfly form, the wrong insect is shown. As Wormy is a butterfly, there are enormous, rainbow-colored, shimmering eyes and sharp mouthparts are seen, distinctive to that of a horsefly, instead of circular black eyes and a proboscis (tongue). Furthermore, butterflies do not make buzzing sounds, which (again) is a characteristic of flies.
• The episode "Wormy" was banned in some countries, due to Wormy's face being a horsefly close-up frightening young viewers.
• Wormy's close up became a popular internet meme and created a crossover video edits where other characters from other series reacting to Wormy.
• The word "wormy" means infested or eaten by worms.
• Even though Wormy is a monarch butterfly, his caterpillar stage does not look like a monarch caterpillar and instead resembles a typical green cartoon worm. During his live-action transformation, a monarch caterpillar is shown tinted green, as monarch caterpillars are yellow with black-and-white stripes.
• The live-action footage used when Wormy emerges and the news bulletin about the "monster" attacking depict a female Monarch butterfly with thicker wing veins, compared to male Monarchs having thinner wing veins. This suggests Wormy may have actually been a female butterfly, as it is very hard to determine a Monarch caterpillar's gender until it metamorphoses into an adult butterfly (and thus Sandy assumed that the caterpillar was male).