Woodworm are usually around 1/32 to 1/4 inches, with a long and flat body, in brown or black-coloured.

The fully-grown woodworms will find holes or cracks on wooden rough surfaces to lay eggs, it will then grow into the larva stage and start corroding wood from within. The inside part of wood will be eroded by various tortuous channels with wormholes appearance on the visible surface; also, they will leave powdery excretion on the holes. Starch and sugar in the wood are the main nutrition sources for woodworms’ larva, for wood with soft texture will become the main target for woodworms and the damage will be more rapid and visible.

Wood ware or furniture are the common breeding grounds for woodworms, including wooden floor, skirting or even expensive sculptures. When people came across holes on their wood product, they normally would think it was a careless mistake by human. They would not realise the problem until more and more wormholes appear with increased amount of excretions; by then, your favourite sculpture might not look the same anymore. A very distinct way to identify the problem of woodworms is that the visible holes are tiny with some powdery wood around the holes, and they will be dropped from the holes easily.

Another common misconception is between woodworms and termites, in which both of them live inside wood. However, woodworms in favour of wood with dry and soft texture (Wood around 12-15% moisture level) while termites are normally found inside wet wood. Moreover, most of the woodworms could survive with consuming water in the air. Besides, woodworms have got an extremely high starvation tolerance; they would turn into dormancy mode when there is no food source. One of the weaknesses of woodworms is vibration. When vibration occurs, they will evacuate immediately; yet, some spices of woodworms would feign death under unfavourable circumstances.