Giant Palouse earthworms

[Rod Sprague]

Another article; http://www.wormdigest.org/index.php?opt ... 7&Itemid=2

[Lambchop]

Marian the Nonplanarian died. By the way. I forgot to mention it before.

I'm sorry to hear about Marian---okay, I didn't exactly take to her as a possible kindred spirit, but I really am sorry that she died. I am also confused. I thought she was ready to spawn or something and so she was going to live on some mud flats. I actually didn't realize you still had her with you. Am I thinking of another pet? Isn't this the pet that could bite you and cause very serious problems---the one you found among that green stuff for your fish? And your betta. I'm am sorry also. I will need to look them up. Do you give them names?

Yes, Cynth, this is the one that could bite you. Her tragic passing occurred before the pupating-on-a-mud-beach thing happened.

My bettas have names, usually indicative of their color. It makes it easier for the fish-sitter to provide reports when I'm away. There is Blueberry, Mulberry, and Ciaran, who had to have a different name because Mulberry was already in use. And, of course, the one who died was named after the turkey condiment. For reasons that would be obvious if you had seen him.

[Rod Sprague]

Was your late fish one of the regulars on the board? Its name is rather familiar. I guess on line, no one can tell you’re a betta.

[Cynth]

These stories are starting to remind me of a wonderful travel book called
Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O'Hanlon. It's about a trip he and a
friend, maybe more, made in 1983 to try to see the rare Borneo rhino.
Sadly they didn't see the rhino, but at least they survived the trip.

This picture was taken this year and is the first photo ever taken of the Borneo rhino
(a subspecies of the also critically rare Sumatran rhino---I think they have some fur).
It had not been seen for 20 years, according to one website, and they
think there are only 13 left.


http://www.worldwildlife.org/news/displ ... m?prID=288

Okay, sorry.

Back to Into the Heart of the Palouse Prairie

Gee, this sort of looks like the one that got chopped up
which is too bad but I can see how it happened.
Really, it is a beautiful creature isn't it? Actually, I know
beauty is only skin deep. I will let the authorities know
if I come across a big white worm.

[Flyingcursor]

Rod I think you may have mentioned that you are an entymologist before but I'd forgotten. What a fascinating field.

How did you decide to study bugs? Where did you go to school? Have you any articles or books? Do you have a favorite area of study within entymology?



I saw an interesting thing on Animal Planet Saturday. There's this parasite that lives in some species of ant. It gets into the ant brain and makes the ant climb to the end of a long blade of grass where the ant clamps on with it's mandibles and hangs there for up to eight days.
Rabbits come by and eat the ants.
The parasite then moves into the Rabbits liver where it becomes a fluke. The fluke lays eggs which come out in the rabbit's feces. The eggs can only hatch if they're eaten by a certain snail. The snail eats the feces and the eggs hatch in the snail causing a build up of mucus wich contains the original parasite.
The snail spits up the mucus and ants come along and eat it, thus repeating the cycle.

That is so awsome.

[hyldemoer]

I switched over to vermaculture when I ran out of room in my back yard for the final processing of my Bokashi.

I had a colony of red worms under my sink and was going to use the castings to grow edible mushrooms. I gave half of it to the interim minister and his wife as a going away present. Unfortunately, mine died during a heat wave.

Bummer!
That was a real possibility for me as I don't use airconditioning (it messes with my Ki) so I keep my worms down stairs in the laundry-room in something like this

with a huge "boot tray" underneath it incase it leaks.

Mushrooms? I've always used kits (down in the basement) when I wanted to grow them at home.

I've had a lot of success growing shiitake mushrooms outdoors on an oak log with spore plugs.
One of my herb teachers has 100 acres of land with lots of oak trees. All she did was drill a couple holes in an oak tree stump and put the plugs in.
But that's shiitakes for ya.

[Rod Sprague]

I’m an entomologist because I never grew out of the “bugs are cool!” stage of my life. No papers yet, as I’m still an undergrad.

One of my hobbies was cloning wild mushrooms and trying to grow them at home. I thought worm castings would be a good substrate for some of the more copraphillic fungi, as I had heard someone else has had good luck with castings, also.

One more odd bit on the giant earthworm. I found two in the church compost heap behind the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse when I was sexton more than ten years ago. I just don’t often tell people that, as it sounds a bit too incredible to be true. I think it is the result of no one ever tilling the land the church is on, and the building has been there since the 1900s, originally as a Swedish Lutheran church. I have suggested recently in the monthly bulletin that we turn that part of the church grounds into a native vegetation zone, as even if the worms are gone, it would still be a real asset to the church and community. I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback, so I think it will happen.

Rod

[hyldemoer]

... I have suggested recently in the monthly bulletin that we turn that part of the church grounds into a native vegetation zone, as even if the worms are gone, it would still be a real asset to the church and community. I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback, so I think it will happen.

One of the members of a local UU congregation happens to be in the wild flower landscaping business so you can bet their Frank Lloyd Wright designed building is landscaped with native plants.

Its not the easiest thing to do.
I had no idea how much vegetation was imported (at the same time as foreigner earthworms) until I was working on a Medicine garden at a local American Indian Center.

What was an even bigger eye opener was how many of the nonindigenous plants were used by indigenous peoples. There's a lot to be said for shamanistic traditions.

[Cynth]

..... as I’m still an undergrad......

.....when I was sexton more than ten years ago.
Rod

So, like, you were a sexton when you were a little kid?

[Denny]

..... as I’m still an undergrad......

.....when I was sexton more than ten years ago.
Rod

So, like, you were a sexton when you were a little kid?

most of 'em do go through that stage...

[Rod Sprague]

..... as I’m still an undergrad......

.....when I was sexton more than ten years ago.
Rod

So, like, you were a sexton when you were a little kid?

No, it was personal issues.

[The Weekenders]

This subject reminds me of a cause I am thinking of igniting publicly with the local park and municipal districts..

For fire prevention, in California, it is common to use a tractor pulling a disc attachment to create fire breaks. This is especially used in suburban locations where they have zoned grazing animals out of legality. In other words, you could use cattle, sheep or goats to keep the weeds and grasses down but it's inconvenient due to fencing etc to do so. So instead they pull these discs up and down the hillsides, etc. Discing is also done in orchards as well, but likely for different reasons, but with the same effect.

Nobody ever mentions the damage that it might be doing to snakes, plants that have rhizomes or other kinds of root bodies, as well as disturbing the integrity of soil layers. So you get a very different kind of "annual" as opposed to "perennial" habitat. One thing I have learned from the newer waves of environmental science is taking a fresh look at the whole of what we call the ground, and its surface integrity is important.

Reading about those worms reminded me of it. Even mowers, like tractor mowers are death to snakes that can't get away in time.

Coming from a ranching family, I am frankly prejudiced in favor of grazing animals, but I think more life species would be preserved with them rather than discing. I also know that it likely helps to control what we consider destructive ground mammals, so I am sure there would be resistance to cutting back on the practice for that reason.

I don''t know if they do it in Idaho, and it sounds like non-native habitat encroachment is a major factor but I do wonder how the ground is treated there....I feel sad for those big white worms. They sound kinda cool.