I have liked Earthworms since childhood. I think they are rather beautiful and their poop makes great fertilizer. Sometimes if I hurt one I feed it to the house gold fish. Those suckers are hell of diggers and bring air to underground which helps bring life so we can have yummy dinner. These look perfect for a worm farm.

The microbes that allow most plants to adsorb nutrients via their roots are colonised in worms guts. Without worms these microbes are not spread in great number through the soil. There are exceptions of course, certain microbes do exist in places where there aren't earthworms, in some unique soil profiles, and also below the ocean on volcanic smokers where specially adapted microbes process sulphates so plants and other life forms can survive without sunlight.

Fungi also make up part of the system allowing the roots of plants to absorb nutrients. Without microbes and fungi, most plants would never absorb enough nutrients to survive and worms play a major role in this process. In fact most plants can only absorb just a few tiny percent of nutrients without the microbes, fungi, beneficial bacteria that aid their root systems.

I think earthworms are very cute and nice little fellows, especially the large ones. They always seem to have a smile on their face and be the happiest of farmers.

Ha!!!

Sandworms in beetlejuice

haha. Awesome graphic. Although... I definitely can't agree that the graboid is bigger than the sarlacc. I'm not proud of it... but I've even seen all of the tremors movies... EVEN tremors 3 (don't bother)... and the graboid is easily half the size of the sarlacc!

Definitely should be proud of seeing all those movies, they bes excellente'. :)

I did not know that! Wish they wouldn't have brought them, they are carrying some weird parasite (according to my vet) that got in my dog's sinuses!

Didn't know that! Very interesting!

Good ole colonists...... they brought a lot of different diseases over too.

That's bizarre. Imagine no worms. North American environment is an interesting place. There are some awesome wildflowers, some very cool critters and a remarkable variety of habitat to explore.

Vaseline might work, that usually suffocates mites and some irritating parasites without being all nasty chemical and stuff. Most animals can be affected by mites, chickens, horses, cows, the little blighters just pick on certain animals sometimes. Not sure if would be the same parasite, but it could be worth a shot if they ever appear again because it won't hurt your poor dog. One of my old dogs once got attacked by the bastards, and vet reckoned I needed some expensive pills that didn't seem to do anything, so I Vaselined 'em and they suffocated and kicked the bucket. I always get the dog's shots and give him the flea/worm stuff, but for some reason the odd dog seems susceptible to a darn rogue parasite, except the last one, he's too darn obnoxious for even parasites to handle.

these are I believe microscopic, they get into the sinuses.

Great info LivingPong - I have felines, who when they get ear mites, I drown em
in baby oil, then wipe out the the cats' ears with gauze soaked in hydrogen
peroxide, to clean out the dead mite bods or any that might've 'escaped' the
counter-attack.

I'll try Vasoline like you suggested next time round of ears regime' goes.

Do you know anything about what's best for fleas, non-chemicals? The
bain of mankind and animals...... hideous fleas. And when u see em under
an electron micro-scope --- itty monsters. Ugh !

What type of mite? Sinus mites? Never had that occur here in Midwest........
well, Wisconsin mite season for domestic canines/felines.

capillaria boehmi
http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/dxendopar/parasitepages/trichocephalids/c_bohm...

Oh.........yuk, bot learn somethin' new every day so it's okay. ha-heh
Thank u for info.

P.S. I didn't notice, but lots of parasites are infectious w/some type of disease.
They are of the four groups of disease bearing creepy 'tings.......
bacteria, virus, fungue, and parasite.

Not sayin' all parasites disease bearing, bot are deese strange anomolies?

Dem some uglee-e-e worms.

I was thinking about what the catfish here would think of them.

Aww yeah cat fish and bass both would tear them up i bet.

Not very good, they are full of dirt. Regular earthworms at least have a unique flavour, which I can't say is very appetising, but then again I've only tried a couple of varieties.

Well I guess if ya split them then hosed them out and pan fried them. Can't be that bad.

I hear ya........... X2 !

They are totally cool. There are a few people who search for them and document them but much is still not know about many species. Giant Earthworms are also incredibly fast, moving meters in a couple of seconds, which makes them very difficult to find. Giant Earthworm castings can be massive and much larger than your hand, easily the size of an American football.

They're much more harder to shoot than simple skeet too!

'plane' or 'plain'........ lol. Actually, one could say both.

Still wanna 'see' one, Artemis6?

2nd one. I caught myself today trying to do that again, but I caught it. Interesting that it was the same word. A little brain coming back ever so slowly but making a return anyways. Thanks for the notice. It helps me to be more aware and notice myself. Peace

Das okay, really ! I just meant that one could say both, cuz u could be saying,

"That's plain awesome" on a different plane

They say there is one in north Idaho that smells like lillies and is white ...

letsliveinpeace said that Natl. Geo. claims they're found in Australia........... dis is gettin'
a bit confusing.

Giant Earthworms are found in countries right around the world, it's that little is known about them and many species have not yet been properly documented. Documented species so far were found in Lithuania, including an aquatic species, Romania, other parts of Europe, a number of countries situated in the African continent (giant earthworms love Rino dung), the South American continent, China and other parts of Asia, and of course Australia (though they aren't that common and you would have to go to specific places to find them).

Because of their incredible speed and depth they normally live at, you would be very lucky to ever see one. Giant Earthworms are generally only found at the surface on rare occasions after heavy rains which force them to the surface to escape drowning. They also occasionally leave their huge castings on the surface, which give experts some indications there may be worm tunnels deep below in the ground.

Thank u for this information LivingPong.... it makes me a bit less 'skin-crawly' on
the thought of these large slimers.