Searchers shovel Northwest dirt seeking giant worm

AP - Yahoo News ^ | July 11, 2009 | NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS

[don-o]

MOSCOW, Idaho – The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle — its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from "Dune" or those vicious creatures from the movie "Tremors."

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.

But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.

The worm may be elusive, but there's no doubt it exists, said Jodi Johnson-Maynard, a University of Idaho professor who is leading the search for the worm. To prove it, she pulled out a glass tube containing the preserved remains of a fat, milky-white worm. One of Johnson-Maynard's graduate students found this specimen in 2005, and it is the only confirmed example of the species.

The worm in the tube is about 6 inches long, well short of the 3 feet that early observers of the worms in the late 1890s described. Documented collections of the species, known locally as GPE, have occurred only in 1978, 1988, 1990 and 2005.

[don-o]

Click through for linkage to Palouse worm website.

[Doogle]

[smokingfrog]

[SunkenCiv]

...with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species

[jakerobins]

Maybe they are just trying to catch a really big fish?? LOL

[nufsed]

Reminds me of the last time I lay on the beach and six people from GreenPeace tried to pull me back into the water.

[smokingfrog]

Looks like they’re trying to get the worm declared as an endangered species.

[cripplecreek]

[don-o]

But of course. Problem is, it seems, no one can find one of the buggers.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species,”

In other words; lets find a way to take land from people.

[JoeProBono]

[Sloth]

[smokingfrog]

By gosh, then that must prove they're almost extinct.

[gusopol3]

better them than dynamite,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwxH3PPWiU

[353FMG]

What type of fish is it, and where was it caught?

[don-o]

I like it! A lot!

Now if that had been on a Southern beach, you just let some ol’ boys with big trucks, tractors and chainsaws at that thing and they could have saved the dynamite.

[RichInOC]

“He who controls the spice controls the universe!”

[Viking2002]

Mein Gott in Himmel! I could take one worm, all seven of my fishing rigs, and have enough bass and crappie bait for an entire afternoon! LOL

[Jeff Chandler]

Giant Worm

[gusopol3]

The way this was written up in Sports Illustrated shortly after the event was absolutely classic. Apparently a fine spray of pulverized whale pulp coated every thing down wind for some distance.