Giant earthworms
Forgetomori has a nice photo gallery of giant earthworms. I'm not sure if they are real or not.
The worms in the images all look they are up to a meter in length, compatible with the recorded dimensions for the many species of the families we discussed. They are probably real, though exactly from where and what species my ordinary investigation didn’t come up with. Specialists, do enlighten us with further confirmation and identification! The first image of a girl holding up one, for instance, may not be of an earthworm but of a caecilian.
the latest
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ugh!
unicorn chaser, please!
Jeezus. Need some god damn maker hooks for that thing.
Yes, there are giant earthworms. The ones I recall reading about in college were the Giant Earthworms of Gippsland, Australia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Gippsland_earthworm
Someone call Kevin Bacon, he'll deal with these monsters!
Yep, Australia is known for having meter-long worms.
I had no idea I really could scream like a little girl.
You need to make this an "Earthworm chaser".
Here's a picture and more for Gippsland worms. I have seen them myself when working in Oz...
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/DPI/nreninf.nsf/childdocs/-9599F8E44B161F63CA256BC800079622-3171B95D85BB1106CA256BC800090AFD-DB2CE7EB873B43834A256DEA00293261-4327A3B275B535CDCA256BCF00088814?open
Just think of the fish you could catch with those!
Well, I know what I'm going to be having nightmares about for the next while.
just the thing to cure my over-active immune system.
Shai-Hulud!
Yeah, thanks.
Now I'm totally freaked out.
(this guy who started whimpering when he saw the Directors Cut of King Kong and the man eating worms)
Chtorr!
Recently stepped (accidentally) on one of these (a giant annelid at least) in a forest near Manaus, AM, Brazil. In Brazil they are called Minhocuçu, probably many species but that is just usually a reasonable guess in the tropics. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minhocuçu
And, yes, the first picture does appear to be a Caecilian.
#11, Hahaha, That's gross.
There be worms, but where're the spice deposits?
Damn you, Khan! Kirk was only doing his duty!
This planet is sadly lacking in creatures that can eat an adult human in a single gulp. I remember my bitter, bitter disappointment when I found out that man-eating plants aren't real.
Earthworms are awesome! I want one of these to wear around like a pet snake.
Please, please don't let the Japanese find out about this.
I've seen one of those before at a fetish club...
Do they come in giant cans, or is that just a figure of speech? ;D
Wow! I wish I had one of these for my compost heap. Talk about vermiculture!
The pictures either prove the existance of giant earthworms, or of tiny hobbit folk in modern dress who like to prank the big folk.
I could swear I see the pixels...
Worms, okay. But I'm not entirely convinced those things are from Earth.
They're mutations caused by radiation. No, wait; the government made 'em. *Big* surprise for the Russians.
Boing Boing reader should be advised, however, that there are two more, repeat, two more motherhumpers.
Photo #1 is a caecilian, most likely Siphonops annulatus, which has those lovely rings like an earthworm. But they have teeth, and sensory tentacles, which makes them much more interesting.
But they have teeth, and sensory tentacles, which makes them much more interesting.
Glorf...hrrk...*cough*
I remember as a kid reading in Charlie Brown's 'Cyclopedia that the largest earth worm on record was over 6 feet long. It seemed to gross Snoopy out a lot - and yet when I was 8 years old, I had little idea what 6 feet was, or that the ground beneath me wasn't just always seething with such monsters. Now here I am at age 34 a little freaked out. I guess anything is possible when you're a kid.
@#29 anonymous: please stop using teeth and sensory tentacles in the same sentence. yeesh.
I suppose that sometimes the early worm catches the bird?
Awww, they're adorable.
"Charlie Brown's 'Cyclopedia." Good grief THATBOB #31. You have just supplied me with a 1979-era flashback.
Don't forget the Giant Palouse Earthworm. Only 3 feet (1 m) long, but said to smell like lilies.
I prefer bigger crawling things to smaller ones.
After all, you -know- when a big one's in the room. Just think about all the things crawling over your skin right now. If we got rid of you, for instance, without touching anything on the surface or interior of your body, there would be a perfect frame of nematodes and stomach bacterias and skin mites of a hundred different types. You never see them or even feel them. (Though imagine how it would be to be aware of a trillion scuttling limbs...)
Or the things crawling through your bed before you crawl into it- creatures to which your sheets are a catacomb of 400-threadcount Egyptian cotton, with chambers for breeding, feeding, and burial.
Or the jumping spider named Steve who lives outside my door. He leaps on me every day, he's quite friendly, though sometimes unexpected. I don't know when he's coming, but when Clocky leaps for me, well, at least I hear the whoosh and see the sun blotted out by his approach.
OK. I'll bite: Clocky?
Clocky
clocky?
http://www.stellawu.com/uploaded_images/IMG_1332-795532.JPG
Wormsign the likes of which God has never seen!
NNyyeaaaahh!! Yeesh!
@Kappakahi LOL, nice reference!
@29: Your comment about tentacles threw me for a moment, because I used to have a cecilian in my freshwater aquarium, and I never saw anything that I would describe as a "tentacle". But they do indeed have this (apparently unique) pair of olfactory organs that are retractable. "Retractable tentacles" sounds a lot more squidgy and freaky than what they actually look like:
http://www.gymnophiona.org/morphology/
See figs. 7 and 9.
But if you want creepy, here goes. The reason I speak about my cecilian in the past tense is because one night it escaped its tank through a small gap at the back of the aquarium hood...and disappeared. This is an 18-inch long, fat purple-grey toothy carnivorous worm (amphibian, actually), blind and not well adapted for moving about on land, and it somehow managed to get away and hide. I tore the house apart looking for it, and never found it. My wife tiptoed around the house for *weeks*, always turning on lights before entering a room, and shaking out the sheets before going to bed. Even a couple of years later, when we moved out, I expected to find dessicated remains under the fridge or something, but found no trace.
I can only hypothesize that our cat ate it. And he's not telling.
Those are not giant worms. Thats the hand of a tiny person.
His name is "pulgarcito"
Never go in against a Caecilian when death is on the line.
Caecilian, you're breaking my heart...
wow. they must make great dirt.
Howdy,
You don't have to go to exotic places. I have seen 2 foot long worms in Iowa. I was startled the first time, but saw several more late at night skooch over the sidewalk on a farm.