SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - It's 3 feet long, pinkish in color, smells like a lily and must be saved from extinction, conservationists said Thursday in asking the federal government to protect the Giant Palouse Earthworm under the Endangered Species Act.Long thought extinct, the worm was rediscovered in the past year to occupy tiny swatches of the heavily farmed Palouse region along the Washington-Idaho border."This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of," worm supporter Steve Paulson declared. "What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3 foot-long, lily smelling, soft pink worm that spits?"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet seen the petition regarding Driloleirus americanus, agency spokesman Tom Buckley said in Spokane.Normally when the agency gets a request, it will consider whether an emergency listing is needed. Then it will do a 90-day review to determine if the issue warrants additional study, Buckley said.If it deserves more study, there will be a year long review to decide if endangered species protection is needed, Buckley said."When you consider how the Palouse prairie has been utilized, with all the agriculture down there, how anything like that survived the effects of agriculture is beyond me," Buckley said.He can also see other reasons the worm might need protection."If you are a fisherman, it might be a bonanza if you found something like that," Buckley said.The petition was sent by certified letter on Aug. 30 to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor, said Paulson, an author of the petition who lives in Lenore, Idaho.It's too soon to know if anyone will object to the listing, or what lands might be considered critical habitat, Paulson said. He suspected that only lands that have not been developed, which represent only a fraction of 1 percent of the Palouse prairie, would be preserved as habitat.The earthworm is native to the deep soils of the Palouse, which were built up by millions of years of volcanic ash and are some of the richest farmland on Earth. Little is known about the giant worms: how many there are, where they live, how they behave, or why they are so scarce.
3Ft. Long Earthworms
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Here you go AaronI fed my brother half a worm once when we were kids glad it wasnt one of these big mama's he might have remembered(LOL) http://palouseprairie.org/invertebrates/palouseworm.html --------------------------------heres another very strange creature they found in Russia they dont know what this one is(bet my brother is glad we didnt live around any of these things I might have fed him to it(LOL)http://englishrussia.com/?p=251
I was about 5 he was 3 I saw a worm in the flower bed and cut it in half with my little plastic shovel and me being me trying to tease him with it put it in front of his face and said want to eat it, him of course being practially a baby ate it I thought it was hysterically funny and went laughing to my mom needless to say she find the humor in it.I think I remember it because its the last time I ever got over on him he's the one that grew up to be the practical joker.Now that I think of it do you think I caused it?
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