If they migrate onto plants, or other objects, they can lower themselves back to the ground by a string of mucus.

They slide over this mucus carpet by the action of closely spaced, tiny hairs which are found in a strip on the underside. As they move along, they excrete large amounts of slimy mucus from glands in the body wall, and wave their heads from side to side. These worms are light ochre-yellow on the upperside and greyish white or pinky grey on the underside. One of these bands runs along the upper midline and there is a dark patch in the neck region.

In addition to its peculiar shovel-shaped head, the Shovel-headed Garden Worm has a long, soft, flattened body (a few millimetres in width) with five longitudinal dark brown stripes, which vary in their distinctiveness and width. Many flatworms are parasitic, but the Shovel-headed Garden Worm is a free-living terrestrial species. Shovel-headed Garden Worms belong to the Phylum Platyhelminthes, a large phylum of worms known as flatworms because of their flattened bodies. The Shovel-headed Garden Worm, Bipalium kewense, was first discovered in the hothouses of the famous Kew Gardens in England (its scientific name means 'plate-headed worm from Kew').

Flat worm-like bugs