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Dave, a 16-inch-long earthworm discovered recently in England, will become part of the collection at the Natural History Museum in London.What Paul Rees recently discovered among his vegetables in England's Cheshire County is anything but garden variety: a gigantic earthworm. Rees's stepson, George, named the behemoth Dave. He's the longest earthworm recorded in the United Kingdom—almost 16 inches—but it's his mass that has really impressed scientists. Dave weighs nearly an ounce, almost twice as heavy as any other wild earthworm ever seen. That's about the size of a small chocolate bar. Before Dave, the largest earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) was a...

h/t to Patrick Richardson at PJ Media for the tip on what Greg Gutfeld of Fox News said about Newt. You can see the video here.

PALOUSE, Wash. -- Pity the poor robin that latches onto one of these worms. A yard long and as big around as a man's pinkie finger, the giant Palouse earthworm is albino-pale, can burrow 15 feet deep and smells like a lily. The recent discovery of one of the scarce giants has energized entomologists and soil scientists, who fear it may be near extinction. "It was very exciting. Just to find something we thought, perhaps, was gone is a great thing," University of Idaho soils scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard said. The native giant earthworms have been found by scientists only four...

It is the ethical dilemma that for decades has troubled the rich and aspiring the world over: when you place a live lobster in a pot of boiling water, does it feel pain? Norwegian scientists were asked to investigate pain, discomfort and stress in invertebrates and claim now to have discovered that the answer is no. Their conclusion applies also to crabs and to live worms on a fish hook. None of these feel a thing. Which is good news for Norwegian fishermen at least. Their government was considering a ban on live worms as fish bait under revisions to...