ED doctors faced a curly one when a Melbourne woman retrieved 40cm of worm from her stool, stored it in a jar and presented it to them.

It turned out that the well-travelled 30-year-old had sampled various raw and cured fish dishes, including fermented herring (surströmming) in Sweden, cured salmon (gravlax) in Norway and ceviche in South America. 

She told the doctors she had intermittent abdominal pain but no other concerns until she passed part of a worm during a bout of diarrhoea.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital doctors identified it as a tapeworm based on its segmented structure.