Allosaurus, question

[franksolich]

Hey Allosaurus, sir, this morning I saw in the newspaper something about worms in Idaho.  Alas, I didn't keep the newspaper.

Apparently there's some sort of gigantic earthworm up there, in the northern half of the state that was once considered mythological, but now's proven to exist?

Earthworms that grow to 12' long?

I'll bet they make good fishing bait.

[thundley4]

The Giant Palouse Earthworm can grow up to three FEET in length. A three-foot worm. The worm was discovered in 1897 and was thought to be extinct by the 1980s, but has been sighted three times since then. The most recent was in 2005. If you want to go Giant Palouse Earthworm hunting, I suggest you start in eastern Washington and Idaho. Bring a shovel, because it can burrow up to 15 feet in the ground. Oh, also, bring a raincoat: it’s thought that it spits to defend itself.

[franksolich]

Apparently prefers a sort of sandy soil too, if I recall the article correctly.

[AllosaursRus]

Hey Allosaurus, sir, this morning I saw in the newspaper something about worms in Idaho.  Alas, I didn't keep the newspaper.

Apparently there's some sort of gigantic earthworm up there, in the northern half of the state that was once considered mythological, but now's proven to exist?

Earthworms that grow to 12' long?

I'll bet they make good fishing bait.

Hahahahahaha! I didn't realize it was national! Hell we been usin' them to catch trout for years. They're nothing more than a hybrid night crawler. The Robins have kept the secret pretty well I guess! lol!

[franksolich]

Hahahahahaha! I didn't realize it was national! Hell we been usin' them to catch trout for years. They're nothing more than a hybrid night crawler. The Robins have kept the secret pretty well I guess! lol!

If I recall the article correctly--after all, morning was a long time ago now--there was a photograph of one 6' long, in the office of a professor in Moscow, Idaho, but whether it was alive or merely preserved, one couldn't tell from the photograph.

[franksolich]

They're nothing more than a hybrid night crawler.

What provoked my interest in it was the comment about how they prefer sandy soil.

In the Sandhills of Nebraska, there live no worms.

I spent my childhood years alongside the Platte River, which of course is black soil, where worms were all over, under the top of the ground.  But during my adolesence in the Sandhills, I noticed, oops, no worms.

Night-crawlers of course are the most common form of fish-bait used around here--and there is considerable fishing around here--but they have to be imported from.....Canada, and cost $3.59 a dozen.

[thundley4]

What provoked my interest in it was the comment about how they prefer sandy soil.

In the Sandhills of Nebraska, there live no worms.

I spent my childhood years alongside the Platte River, which of course is black soil, where worms were all over, under the top of the ground.  But during my adolesence in the Sandhills, I noticed, oops, no worms.

Night-crawlers of course are the most common form of fish-bait used around here--and there is considerable fishing around here--but they have to be imported from.....Canada, and cost $3.59 a dozen.

A while back The Discovery Channel had a show about night crawlers. Canada is the source for most of the ones sold in the US for bait. I had assumed that they were raised, but they are picked up from area farm fields after rain.  I would have thought that the chemicals used in farming would be detrimental to worms.

[Ptarmigan]

The giant earthworms you're thinking of grow up to 3 feet. The longest one lives in Australia and grows up to 12 feet!

[AllosaursRus]

After it rains here on the ranch you can go out after dark and pick a coffee can full of crawlers in about an hour! I have 20 acres of pasture that's just thick with 'em! Many of them are about 2' long!