Idaho scientists find fabled Palouse worm!!

They actually found two of them. If they had found it in Arizona the police would have asked it for it's papers.

"Scientists at the University of Idaho have captured two specimens of the fabled Giant Palouse earthworm, according to an Associated Press report.
After years of searching, researchers on March 27 located an adult and a juvenile specimen of the worms that have become near mythic creatures in the Palouse region of Washington and Idaho."

http://www.dnews.com/breaking-news/1402/

that's a worm!

Well, at least into my consciousness.

I wonder if that's where they got them.

I hate worms.....they're so squirmy.

would be OK in Arizona because it's white.

The Palouse might not be white enough to squirm through Arizona without papers!

I've ever seen were white but I bet it was because they were in jars :)

that worm is HUGE. How hard could it really have been to find? Years? I'm guessing they weren't looking in the right place.

as they don't migrate any further south. Ugh.

will mess you up man

the spice is the worm!

Sting, pre-nose job! Killer!

Researchers Find Rare Giant Worm Doesn’t Live Up to Its Billing

HELENA, Mont.— Once feared extinct, the giant Palouse earthworm, reputed to grow up to three feet long and smell like lilies, has been found alive.

It turns out though, experts say, the worm is not a giant, nor does it have a lilylike scent.

Researchers thought the translucent worm with the pink head, last seen in the 1980s, might be extinct because its habitat, the Palouse prairie region of Idaho and Washington, is almost gone. On March 27, however, Karl Umiker, a University of Idaho research support scientist, working with Shan Xu, a graduate student from Chengdu, China, discovered two giant Palouse earthworms, a juvenile and an adult, on a small patch of native prairie near Moscow, Idaho.

As it turns out, the worms are bigger than night crawlers but not giant. The two specimens, the adult of which had to be killed and dissected to determine it was indeed a giant Palouse earthworm, were about seven inches long when they came from the ground.

“But when we stretched it out and relaxed it, the adult earthworm got bigger,” said Jodi Johnson-Maynard an associate professor of soil and water management and Mr. Umiker’s supervisor. “It’s between nine and 10 inches.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/science/27earthworm.html


Giant Palouse earthworm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The giant Palouse earthworm or Washington giant earthworm (Driloleirus americanus, meaning lily-like worm<2>) is a species of earthworm belonging to the genus Driloleirus found in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington state as well as parts of Idaho in the United States. The worm was discovered in 1897. It can burrow down 5 meters (15 feet).<3>

Although it had been thought to be extinct in the 1980s, recent evidence has demonstrated that the species is not extinct. The latest sighting included recovery of two specimens, an adult and a juvenile, which were unearthed on March 27, 2010 by scientists at the University of Idaho.<4>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Palouse_earthworm

Great place for the hunt, though. That Palouse country.

that's why I live here:




My photos: http://www.palousephoto.net/Photography/The-Palouse/6052198_CtY9R#601969852_fztzB

Thanks!

or the Sand hill snipe.
Stories of those abound all over E. Washington.

:)

:o

(I'm going with the fishing crack because I assume the Dune and Tremors references have already been covered...)

I was pulling weeds in an area that has been undisturbed since the 1930's (in Northwest Iowa) and encountered two specimens of a worm as big around as my thumb and ten or 12 inches long without stretching.

Smaller than the Palouse, but much larger than any of the nightcrawlers I've seen over the years. They were brown, not translucent.

Since worms don't like vibrations/disturbances, and can go so deep, it's no wonder we think they don't exist. The two I saw got trapped up against a buried stone wall -- if the wall hadn't been there, I'm sure both worms would have been elsewhere, as in gone.

quite literally.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10517539@N07/1443983462/

inner coil, upper right).

I think this is an x-ray of a tree snake or vine snake lying peacefully on top of somebody's tummy.

A tapeworm has a long thin "neck" behind a small head, and the tail-end of the body is wide and blunt because that's where mature segments break off and are excreted.

And worms don't have ribs.

They don't say if it will be several small ones or a single big one.

And now they are......:crazy: