Mystery worms turn on northwest China herdsmen

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 5/8/09 | Kirby Chien

[NormsRevenge]

BEIJING (Reuters) – An invasion of unidentified worms has forced 50 herdsmen and their families from their grassland homes, taking 20,000 head of livestock with them, in northwest China's Xinjiang region, state news agency Xinhua said Friday.

The worms are packed up to 3,000 per square meter and chew through the grasslands like lawnmowers, leaving only brown soil in their wake, Xinhua said.

...

Local experts could not identify the 2-cm (1 inch) long, thorny green worm with black stripes and samples had been sent to Xinjiang Agricultural University, Xinhua said.

"The pasture was green a week ago. But now the worms are creeping around, and they even come into my house. I have to sweep them out several times an hour," Xinhua quoted one herdsman as saying.

Xinjiang has in the past used chickens, ducks and other birds to fight locusts, which are also a menace on the grasslands, but so far they have shown little interest in the pesky worms.

[theDentist]

It’s the worm’s turn.

[steveo]

Mystery worms turn on northwest China herdsmen

Those must be some really hot worms...

[NonValueAdded]

Sand trout maturing?

[BGHater]

Must be baby Mongolian Death Worms.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Damn pervs, getting turned on by worms! SICK!

[Hegemony Cricket]

You'd turn too...

[NormsRevenge]

tough little buggers,, if I read the first paragraph right, they took 20,000 cattle too

[Incorrigible]

Where is Kevin Bacon when you need him?

 

[ClearCase_guy]

I wonder if this is any sort of explanation of the waves of barbarian invasions out of central Asia? Huns, Avars, Turks, Mongols, wave after wave of people suddenly decided that they couldn’t live where they were, but had to push East into other people’s domains.

[gridlock]

Shai-Hulud

[handy old one]

That works out to one worm for every .5 Square in. Wonder how they are for fishing?

[gridlock]

How much you wanna bet that the effected areas have been stripped of poultry out of fear of the Avian Flu?

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly...

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

This thread is useless without pics!

[Kartographer]

The first Horseman to represent War and/or the Antichrist, the second to represent Pestilence (sometimes called Plague), while the third and fourth riders remain Famine and Death, respectively. Let's see here;
1. First horse war and/or Antichrist
Obama CHECK
2. Second horse pestilence and plague
Swine flu, crop eating worms, wild fires....CHECK
Well it looks to me as if we have two down and two to go.

[Old Professer]

Global Warming:

“One local official said the worms might be moth larvae that have flourished in the relatively warm winter and plenty of rain.”

[NormsRevenge]

This thread is useless without pics!

I am looking for pics of the little buggers, 'til then, Bon apetit. lol

Taiwan food fair

[Brookhaven]

I thought of that also, but maybe I’m just becomming too paranoid.

But then again, who ever heard of a plague of worms?

[Omedalus]

If Chairman Yang expects to survive a worm attack, he'd better either allocate extra training for his infantry units, or else send more Supply Crawlers to speed production of The Neural Amplifier.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

A little wasabi and I’d hit it.