what do worms attack?

I get the strong impression that the kid is familiar with the cycle of birth and death, and how, essentially, the world is one big cannibalistic restaurant.

Still, I can't help finding something ominous in the adult's last line. If I were that age, staring down at a worm practically the size of a python and wondering what it attacks, it would be material enough for a month of nightmares to be told 'it could eat you'.