Earthworm
Catherine Otto
Greetings to all,
We hiked the Discovery Trail near Peavy Arboretum this afternoon and found this very large earthworm on the trail! Here are photos. For scale, the cell phone is 5 inches long. This is by far the very longest earthworm I’ve ever seen. Interested to see what everyone thinks of it.
Catherine
Pam and Randy Comeleo
Could it be an Oregon Giant Earthworm? If so, you are one lucky naturalist!
https://xerces.org/oregon-giant-earthworm/
http://edgeofthehills.blogspot.com/2011/12/driloleirus-macelfreshi-lives.html
Pam
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Bill Gerth
Hi folks,
That is a cool find! It looks like one of our native Megascolecid earthworms, which are larger, paler, and less likely to be seen on the soil surface than the more common, introduced Lumbricid earthworms that are mainly from Europe. (We also have at least one introduced Megascolecid worm from Asia called the Asian jumping worm).
The native Megascolecid worms in the Willamette Valley (including the eastern Coast Range and western Cascades) are in the genera Driloleirus, Toutellus, Agrilophilus, Arctiostrotus, Drilocheira, and Nephrallaxis (Fender & McKey-Fender 1990). Driloleirus macelfreshi is one of the more publicized species in this family. It's known historic distribution is on the valley-floor in the Willamette Valley. According to Jen Gervais, Driloleirus wellsi is a species that is more likely to be encountered in the Coast Range.
Unfortunately, traditionally, native worms in the family Megascolecidae have needed be dissected to ID them even to genus, and species ID required a worm expert. New DNA techniques may help in this regard, but sequence data is pretty limited so far.
Cheers,
Bill
P.S. I have some pdfs of publications on western worms if anyone wants more details. The files are a bit large to send to the whole group, but I'd be happy to share with anyone who wants to email me directly.