Mysterious and susceptible: the key lives of Australia’s large worms | Invertebrates

One of many world’s largest worms would possibly escape discover, if not for the loud gurgling noises that may be heard coming from underground because the species burrows and squelches by way of its moist clay.

The large Gippsland earthworm, a purple and pink colossus that lives in a small, moist patch about 100km east of Melbourne in south-east Australia, reportedly stretches so long as 2 to three metres.

These slow-moving and sleek giants, in keeping with species specialist Dr Beverley Van Praagh, are fairly in contrast to the “squiggly and squirmy” backyard selection, which Guardian readers topped UK invertebrate of the 12 months in 2024.

Even a median sized particular person would eclipse the UK’s largest recorded specimen, a 40cm-long lob worm named Dave present in a Cheshire vegetable patch.

Worm researchers resembling Van Praagh say it’s difficult to check an animal that lives underground, even one so immense.

She mentioned the primary option to detect them was to stomp about on the floor, and hear out for the distinctive sound – like water draining from a shower – of a startled worm retracting deeper underground.

Generally researchers look for proof of burrows, complicated tunnels with rippled sides, in keeping with Simon Hinkley, the gathering supervisor of terrestrial invertebrates on the Museums Victoria Analysis Institute.

They would possibly discover a cocoon, formed like a cocktail sausage, the place the worms laid a single egg that produced one giant child – about 20cm lengthy – after a 12 months. Egg cocoons have been a gorgeous amber color, he mentioned. “And in case you maintain them as much as the sunshine, you’ll be able to really see there’s one worm inside.”

Excessive care needs to be taken when digging, as these are susceptible creatures.

For those who by chance nick an enormous worm it bleeds, and is unlikely to outlive, Hinkley says. Anecdotal accounts describe “horrific” scenes of fields working “purple with blood” when the worm’s habitat was first cleared and ploughed.

The mild giants stay in small, remoted colonies, however as a long-lived species that produce few younger, and proceed to be threatened by adjustments to the water desk, soil disturbance and excavation.

Dr Pat Hutchings, a senior fellow on the Australian Museum, mentioned Australia had an enormous variety of worms, together with many endemic species and a number of other giants discovered on land, in sand and underneath the ocean.

Hutchings specialises in sea worms, often known as polychaetes. She described one giant specimen, measuring at the very least 1 metre lengthy, present in sediments underneath shallow waters about 180km north of Sydney.

The species was named Eunice dharastii after the fisheries scientist Dr Dave Harasti, who managed to entice the iridescent worm out of its underwater tube by dangling an providing of fish head over the burrow.

Hutchings mentioned one other sea worm species, discovered within the Kimberley area of northern Australia, was lengthy sufficient to be slung round her neck like a feather boa.

Hutchings mentioned regardless that worms may be gathered collectively as one group of animals, they have been extremely numerous of their types, behaviour and reproductive methods.

“We’ve obtained this wonderful biodiversity in Australia,” she mentioned, together with 1000’s of worm species. There simply weren’t sufficient worm scientists but to explain them.

Invertebrate of the 12 months 2025

The Guardian is asking readers to appoint species for the second annual invertebrate of the 12 months competitors. Learn extra about it and make your recommendations right here or through the shape beneath.