Giant Earthworm here too?

[Don Boucher]

From the Sunday Gazette-Times:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GIANT_PALOUSE_EARTHWORM?SITE=ORCOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

It's about giant native species of earthworm from the Palouse. It's no
invertebrate "Bigfoot: as they acttually have specimen and species
name for it.

Perhaps there's a similar species right here in Corvallis? Review this
discussion from Mid-Valley Birding in March:


On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 Lars Norgren wrote:

> Within 24hrs of my non-ornithological
> inquiry I had numerous solid contacts for
> Oregon's most intriguing invertebrate. Obol
> subscribers constitute a host of intellectual
> champions.
> Megascolides was originally described from
> Australian worms (said to reach 11' in length).
> The Oregon worms have been redesignated Driloleirus,
> although they are still assigned to the family
> Megascolidae. Ours is the only area outside the
> Southern Hemisphere to have this family. The Oregon
> Giant Earthworm is Driloleirus macelfreshi, first
> described in the 1930s and known from a total of
> 12 specimens. D. cascadensis is only slightly
> smaller, and more easily found. As its name implies,
> the type specimen is from the Cascades (east of Salem)
> but most specimens have been collected in the Coast Range.
> MacDonald Forest has produced specimens of D. cascadensis.
> A 52" long worm found dead in Willamette Park
> last(2008) December is surely D. macelfreshi, but
> internal decomposition precluded positive ID, which
> is based on internal organs. 52" would be the largest
> specimen known, but with only a dozen on record, who
> knows what the actual range in size might be. Since my
> initial conversation on Wednesday, I have mentioned
> the topic to every truffle hunter I talk to and they
> all have seen giant worms. Not frequently, maybe not
> even yearly, but repeatedly none the less.
> Darrel Faxon tells me of seeing giant worms
> repeatedly at the youthful end of his observations
> of nature, but not recently. Perhaps these were
> D. cascadensis, or a yet undescribed species. The
> current theory attributes the Willamette silts as
> the home of D. macelfreshi, but 12 data points strike
> me as a rather flimsy basis for any theory. It is
> believed to go up to 15 feet deep, by way of permanent
> burrows. The idea of a worm one inch in diameter
> burrowing so deep seems improbable at first blush,
> but my father informs me that nowhere on earth are
> soils more porous at this depth than the Oregon
> Coast Range and the west slope of the Cascades.
> Lars Norgren

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From Joel Geier on March 15, 2009 (posted on Mid-Valley Birding)

Thanks Lars for mentioning this intriguing creature, which I was not
aware of. I'm sure Mike Denny, if he's paying attention out in Walla
Walla, will sooner or later speak up for the Palouse giant earthworm
which has been in the news more recently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Palouse_earthworm

It looks like this and the Oregon giant earthworm are closely related
(both in the genus Driloleirus). The Palouse species also burrows to 5
m
depths, in those amazing loess deposits of southeastern Washington.