“Bookworm” is a phrase often used to describe someone who enjoys reading books. While the term is endearing, people may not realize that a bookworm is also an actual insect. No, not the cute cartoon inchworm wearing glasses and a bow tie. A literal bug that is anything but cute—and one woman is horrified by the discovery.

Taryn Delanie Smith took to social media to share that she recently discovered that “bookworm” was more than a term of endearment. The shocked woman explained that after showing off her antique book collection online, comments poured in. People were telling her to be careful and look out for bookworms.

This warning prompted Smith to look into what people were saying, since she was unaware that an insect by that name existed. What she discovered in her research scarred both her and unsuspecting viewers alike.

“I love collecting old, dusty, smelly books, and I just think it’s really cool. It’s like a random, stupid, niche thing about me,” Smith says in an Instagram Reel while resting her hand on a stack of old books. That’s when she reveals that someone told her to check her thrifted books for bookworms, before adding, “because I thought that was just a term of endearment for people that liked books.”

Smith grows animated, loudly saying, “You mean to tell me there’s an actual insect called a bookworm?” She covers her mouth with her hand as she looks on in horror at pictures of the small, yellowish, clear bugs eating holes through a book’s pages. The now-grossed-out woman looks at her dusty books with disgust as she wonders aloud whether they’re harboring the small insects.

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She demands to know if she was the only person unaware that bookworms are actual insects. She was not. Bookworms are not common knowledge, according to commenters:

“Literally have a degree in literature and this is news to me”

“You know what sometimes I think we have enough information”

“nah because what do you mean i now have to go through the hundreds of books i own?”

“OMG TARYN NO 😭 I could have gone my whole life without knowing this but now that I know, I’m equal parts grateful and HORRIFIED 😭😭😭”

“Say what now?!?! How big/ small are these buggers?? Is a magnified glass needed or can the naked eye spot them?!?! Ay dios mío 📚 🔍👀 💭 🐛 😬”

“Omg omg omg i must burn all of my books with fire I fear 😭”

Bookworms don’t actually refer to just one insect, though. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the term “bookworm” is used to describe hundreds of different insects that feed on books:

“[The insects include] booklouse, silverfish, powderpost beetle, spider beetle, common furniture beetle, Mexican book beetle, paper worm (larvae of the paper beetle or moth), and larder beetle. These insects are not necessarily interested in eating paper, but they can damage paper in their attempts to reach other materials. They actively feed on leather and cloth bindings, starch paste, animal glues, paper, and cardboard, creating tunnels and holes through these materials.”

One librarian who viewed Smith’s Reel offered advice for buying old books:

“Librarian here. We have a whole machine we ‘cook’ the books for days if any sign of a bug is found. I would not trust freezing them. Actually I would call your local Library and ask for advice! Hopefully you are all good though. The first step is to flip through and if you see any bugs or little bits of flecks all over that kind of look like dirt, put that book outside in the garage.”

While a bottle of bubbles might seem out of place in a hospital setting, you might be surprised to learn that, for thousands of children around the world born with cleft lip and palate, they can be a helpful tool in comprehensive cleft care. Lilia, who was born with cleft lip and palate in 2020, is one of the many patients who received this care. 

As a toddler, Lilia underwent two surgeries to treat cleft lip and palate with Operation Smile’s surgical program in Puebla, Mexico. Because of Operation Smile’s comprehensive care, it wasn’t long before her personality transformed: Lilia went from a quiet and withdrawn toddler to an exuberant, curious explorer, babbling, expressing herself with a variety of sounds, and engaging with others like any child her age. 

Lilia is now a healthy five-year-old, with the same cheerful attitude and boundless energy. Her progress is the result of care at every level, from surgery to speech therapy to ongoing support at home—but it’s also evidence that small, sustained interventions throughout it all can make a meaningful difference. 

Cleft Conditions: A Global Problem

Since 1982, Operation Smile has provided cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries to more than 500,000 patients worldwide with the help of generous volunteers and donors. Cleft conditions are congenital conditions, meaning they are present at birth. With cleft lip and palate, the lip or the roof of the mouth do not form fully during fetal development. Cleft conditions put children at risk for malnutrition and poor weight gain, since their facial structure can make feeding challenging. But cleft conditions can have an enormous social impact as well: Common difficulties with speech can leave kids socially isolated and unable to meet the same developmental milestones as their peers. 

Surgery is a vital step in treating cleft conditions, but it’s also just one part of a much larger solution. Organizations like Operation Smile emphasize the importance of multi-disciplinary teams that provide comprehensive, long-term care to patients across many years. This approach, which includes oral care, speech therapy, nutritional support, and psychosocial care, not only aids in physical recovery from surgery but also helps children develop the skills and confidence to eat easily, speak clearly, and engage in everyday life. This ensures that each patient receives the full range of support they need to thrive. 

A Playful (and Powerful) Solution

Throughout a patient’s care, simple tools like bubbles can play a meaningful role from start to finish. 

Immediately before surgery, children are often in a new and unfamiliar environment far from home, some of them experiencing a hospital setting for the first time. When care providers or loved ones blow bubbles, it’s a simple yet effective technique: Not only are the children soothed and distracted, the bubbles also help create a sense of joy and playfulness that eases their anxiety. 

In speech therapy, bubbles can take on an even more important role. Blowing bubbles requires controlled airflow, as well as the ability to form a rounded “O” shape with the lips, which are skills that children with cleft conditions may struggle to develop. Practicing these skills with bubbles allows children to gently strengthen their facial muscles, improve breath control, and support the motor skills needed for speech development. Beyond that, blowing bubbles can help kids connect with their parents or providers in a way that’s playful, comforting, and accessible even for very young patients. 

Finally, bubbles often follow patients with cleft conditions home in the “smile bags” that each patient receives when the surgical procedure is finished. Smile bags, which help continue speech therapy outside of the hospital setting, can contain language enrichment booklets, a mirror, oxygen tubing, and bubbles. While regular practice with motor skills can help with physical recovery, small acts of play help as well, giving kids space to simply enjoy themselves and join in on what peers are able to do.

Bubbles at Home and Beyond

Today, because of Operation Smile’s dedication to comprehensive cleft care, Lilia is now able to make friends and speak clearly, all things that could have been difficult or impossible before. Instead of a childhood defined by limitation, Lilia—and others around the world—can look forward to a childhood filled with joy, learning, discovery, friends, and new possibilities.  

CTA: Lilia’s life was changed for the better with the care she received through Operation Smile. Find out how you can make an impact in other children’s lives by visiting operationsmile.org today. 

On March 8, 2023, a keeper at World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis County, Missouri, noticed something odd. A male bald eagle named Murphy was guarding what appeared to be a large depression in the ground. “The spot was sparsely but carefully decorated with leaves and branches, and featured a simple rock right in the center,” the nature preserve shared on its Facebook page.

Murphy began sitting on the rock, nudging it and becoming fiercely protective of it, as if it were an egg. People visiting the sanctuary would inquire about the bald eagle just sitting there, wondering if he was okay. The keepers finally put up a sign that read:

“If you see an eagle lying down in the back left corner under a perch, that’s Murphy! Murphy is not hurt, sick, or otherwise in distress. He has built a nest on the ground, and is very carefully incubating a rock! We wish him the best of luck!”

Murphy took his rock duties very seriously

In case you’re wondering if this is unusual behavior for a 31-year-old male bald eagle, the answer is “not really, but….” Male bald eagles do share equally in nesting and baby-raising, so the paternal instinct part is normal. Murphy’s channeling of that instinct onto a rock…maybe not so much. And at 31, he’s more like a great-granddad than dad, as bald eagles usually live 20 to 30 years in the wild (though they do live longer in captivity).

Murphy takes fatherhood seriously, though. Soon he began screaming and charging at the four other eagles in the aviary if they came anywhere near RockBaby. (That’s the official name the keepers gave Murphy’s…well, rock baby.) Naturally, the screaming and charging caused a fair amount of stress for all involved, so Murphy and RockBaby were moved to their own enclosure for everyone’s protection.

People who saw this unfold started suggesting sanctuary staff replace Murphy’s rock with a real egg or get him a mate, but 1) Eagle eggs aren’t just lying around waiting to be given to wanna-be dads, 2) hatching a different kind of bird’s egg would be potentially dangerous for it, and 3) Murphy had two females right there in the aviary, and none of them were interested in each other. Alas, the heart cannot be forced.

Then a real eaglet needed a dad

However, a different opportunity presented itself in late March when an aerie with two chicks in it was blown down by high winds. One chick didn’t survive the fall, but the other was brought to World Bird Sanctuary’s Wildlife Hospital.

A bit bruised, but otherwise healthy, the chick was given a good prognosis. Staff began feeding it while wearing a camouflage suit and holding an eagle stuffy to prevent the eaglet from imprinting on humans. What the baby really needed was a foster parent: an adult eagle who would feed and care for it.

“Murphy’s dad instincts were already in high gear,” the sanctuary wrote on April 11, “but at 31 years old, he had never raised a chick before. It’s definitely a gamble, but also the chick’s best chance.”

Introducing an eaglet to an adult eagle isn’t as simple as dropping it in the enclosure. First, the eaglet is put into what the sanctuary refers to as a “baby jail,” which is a heated, comfy cage made of wood and wire that protects the eaglet but still allows some interaction between the birds so they can get used to one another. Once the desired bonding behavior is observed, then they try out some direct one-on-one interaction without the cage.

On April 12, World Bird Sanctuary announced, “IT’S HAPPENING!!!!”

The eaglet (referred to as Bald Eaglet 23-126, they don’t name foster babies at the sanctuary for superstitious reasons) was released from baby jail, and after an hour or so Murphy approached it with curiosity. Was he wondering if his RockBaby had hatched? Maybe. Would he be the nurturing dad everyone hoped he would be? It appears so.

As the sanctuary shared:

“This morning, Murphy got his chance to be a full parent as 23-126 left the nest to go be closer to Murphy. The food is being dropped through a blind drop tube into the nest and baby appears unable to be able to get over the lip to get back into the nest to get the chopped food. When we checked back, we found that baby was still out of the nest and all the chopped food was still in the nest. However, Murphy’s whole fish had been removed from the nest and baby had a full crop. 23-126 is not yet old enough to tear food which means MURPHY FED THE BABY!!!!”

Murphy’s second eaglet, 24-159, was successfully released into the wild on January 31, 2026, at Audubon Center at Riverlands in West Alton, Missouri: a fitting final chapter to Murphy’s legacy.

The comments on the update, of course, were pure gold as people became fully invested in this story and even gave the eaglet a real........

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