This worm is a resident of the UK and yet just Look at the Size of it! That person`s hand can hardly contain its folded-up Enormity - at 15in (40cm), it is three times the size of a common-or-garden specimen.
How can this be? Global Warming… Aliens… No! – this worm lives on the beauteous Inner-Hebridean Isle of Rum where, abundant in wildlife though it be, the island has no moles, frogs, badgers… in fact hardly any evil-worm-eaters at all.
In this blissful otherworldly place, worms simply live long and prosper, becoming not only the biggest earthworms in the UK, but also the longest-living - up to ten years instead of two!
Worms are modest creatures and yet Charles Darwin wrote, "Of all animals, few have contributed so much to the development of the world as we know it, as these lowly creatures." (Surely food for deep thought).
It doesn`t seem much of a life though… incessant chomping on any old soil and casting it out as Something Beautiful (healthy and fertile); It has been estimated that nearly every particle of healthy top soil on earth has passed through earthworms at one stage or another. (earthwormsinfo.com).
So tread delicately out there.
One (perhaps the?) benefit of being an earthworm is that they don`t catch any diseases, teeming as they are with good and Mighty bacteria. Sadly, they`re also protein-packed and toothless, hence their countless predators.
Agonised by such thoughts, I always reinter worms unearthed in my gardening efforts, but it only takes the patter of rain to bring them hurtling back out to Breathe.
Or of a Fiendish Cunning seagull pretending...
(I thought he was just Happy when we first spotted him).
One Day, Seagull, all worms will be Anaconda-Sized.
8 comments:
That is indeed an impressive worm.
Jolly glad you think so Patsy... I`m wondering if these hunky specimens have palpitating great brains to match - Here Walter! Dins Walter! (In fact they`re probably too clever to fall for that)
Dolores, how could you? You phobia fiend, you.
As you know I am a big Glasgow hard man (aye right- sub-editor comment) and have wrestled with bears, smiled with crocodiles and roared with lions. I have no fear of creepy crawlies like spiders and other insectiods, my fear is of the limbless- snakes, eels and especially worms (because I know there is a chance I might bump into one that shares a puddle with me). My ultimate career goal of being the world's best gardener was trampled underfoot on account of my fear of the little wrigglies.
Now you have discovered monster worms! Gulp, gulp and treble gulp. I won't get a wink of sleep tonight.
Yours squirmingly,
JW
Hee Hoh, JW! (at comment of course, not your bizarre & terrifying FEAR). Definitely don`t Trample in your garden or water it at all because they`ll rise up in Hordes, and they Know where you Live.
If you feel threatened, try distracting them with a bunch of scrummy dead leaves or kitchen peelings then run like hell. And if you hear them coming after you, just Don`t look them in the eye...
Dolores, you are not giving me much sympathy.
"They`ll rise up in Hordes"
This is one of the reasons I have refused, so far, to be a contestant on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I know the producers would put me in tank full of...yeuughh, can't even think about it.
How about you? Do you have any phobias? If so, I promise not to make your discomfort worse by exaggerating their horror. (Don't listen to him, DD. He'll try to frighten you. Sub-editor comment)
Ah, JW, so you turned down the Celeb thing too...
For me, it would be the Tank full of Froth. Yes, Froth - how can people willingly wade round in it at Those parties, or eat Lemon Meringue Pie topping or the bubbles on their beer/cappuccino? (I have to use a straw and look away). And don`t even Mention tooth-brushing! (sand-blast them).
Do you know wherefrom came your Limbless&Wriggly phobia or is it one of those memories Too Horrible to divulge? Mine own is just Too Horrible to even remember, but I suspect I fell into the Twin-Tub on washday. (surely not pushed...)
Consider the Froth...
My phob goes way back to when I was a child and I helped my dad when he was digging in the garden. As he was turning over the dirt I asked him "Ugh, what are those horrible things moving about?" WORMS.
My fear of worms has also given me a secondary phobia linked to the little things. I can't eat (or look at) spaghetti bolognaise. The plate resembles worms and dirt. Strangely, I'll eat rice, which I think looks like maggots. Somehow, maggots are the only limbless thing I am not afraid of.
Enough of this. Let's talk froth.
Woooo-hoooooo.
This piece of froth was carrying another piece of froth on his shoulders. A man came up to the froth and asked isn't that quite tiring and the froth said. "He ain't heavy, he's my frother."
What do you call a brainy froth? A Frothessor.
Sudsy Malone was having trouble with a rival member of the detergent gang but he knew what to do. He would make him a froffer he couldn't refuse.
Sorry Dolores, in future I will stick to making penguin jokes.
Hah Haaah! (and Aaaarrrgh as well)! Oh Horrid man (may nematodes nest in your nasal fronds) - Will I Ever rid myself of these sadistic images?
Feel marginally sympathetic about your spag phobia - that must be Hell to live with...
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