Daily MOS: Giant Gippsland Earthworms

I don’t even have a punchline for this or a great discovery story. I just saw that it existed and it’s been haunting my dreams ever since.

Today’s Moment of Science… earthworms of unusual size.

You get one guess which continent this story takes place on, and if your guess isn’t Australia, it’s likely your first day here.

Megascolides australis was discovered in the 1870s. Originally it was thought to be a snake, and to be fair, I’m not entirely convinced yet that Australia isn’t playing a prank on us with a snake. The giant Gippsland worm is typically three feet, the big ones are six fucking feet, and they can grow up to ten goddamn fucking feet long. I guess if you’re gonna survive eating dirt on a continent with redback spiders, cassowaries, and Pauline Hanson, this is what it takes.

They spend most of their lives burrowing underground. Though they move slowly when inching across the surface of the earth, they’re much speedier underground where they can be detected by making audible gurgling noises. Likely a mechanism to survive the low oxygen environment of the underground, its blood is extremely high in hemoglobin. During heavy rains, similarly to their teensy cousins, it’s not uncommon for them to surface from the soil. It’s considered a good sign that they’ve appeared, signaling a heavy rainfall.

Australia: where seeing apocalyptically large invertebrates heralds good news. Put that on the fucking brochures.

For many years, you could interact with these magnificent burrowers at the Wildlife Wonderland Park in Victoria, home to the Giant Earthworm Museum. It was eventually shut down due to animal welfare concerns. Your best bet for encountering one of these guys, especially when the ground is wet, is to head to a field southeast of Melbourne and stomp around a bit. The earthworms respond to vibrations, and the gurgling noises are so loud you’ll be able to hear them.

Or maybe leave the earthworms of unusual size alone, perhaps just for the researchers to handle. Early farming in the area where they’re endemic ripped them apart. When fields were first farmed, they were described as ”red with blood from these worms. They would hang from the ploughs like spaghetti.” The giant Gippsland earthworm is now classified as an endangered species.

And really, haven’t we learned our lesson yet from everything else we’ve poked in Australia?
(The answer, as I’m sure there’s about to be another round of mouse/bunny/emu warfare, is likely a resounding no).

This has been your daily Moment of Science, subtly suggesting that everything is bigger in Australia.

To support my efforts to make the horrors of the animal kingdom funny and to get the daily MOS sent to your inbox, head to patreon.com/scibabe.

Liked it? Learned something? Made you think? Take a second to support SciBabe on Patreon!