Not-so-charismatic megafauna

Ginormous earthworm discovered, may get federal protection

Posted by Eric de Place (Guest Contributor) at 2:29 PM on 08 Sep 2006

Here's the deal: there's a three-foot-long pink earthworm living in the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington and nowhere else on the planet. It can burrow 15 feet underground and it was re-discovered last year after scientists believed it had gone extinct. Also, it smells like a lily.

At the risk of sounding unserious: awesome!

Anyway, a small group of local conservation groups is petitioning to get the worm listed as a federal endangered species. Listing would probably create some incentive for habitat protection in an area where the native ecosystem, a rich 2-million-acre grassland, is nearly vanished.

So the endangered species petition is about more than just the earthworm; it's also about the wider ecosytem. That sort of tactic -- finding what biologists sometimes call "charismatic megafauna" to use as a poster child for broader conservation -- has worked with grizzly bears, wolves, and sea otters.

But can it work for an earthworm, even a giant one? And anyway, why should we care more about friendly-looking creatures than the oddities of nature?

For story: Not-so-charismatic megafauna
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Spitting worm supporters

This paragraph is a gem:

"This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of," worm supporter Steve Paulson declared Thursday. "What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3-foot-long, lily-smelling, soft pink worm that spits?"

by Sarah K. Burkhalter at 2:38 PM on 08 Sep 2006

That's it ...

... I'm petitioning my alma mater to change their mascot to the "3-foot smelly soft pink spitting worms." That oughta help raise awareness about a local endangered species. Plus, maybe then all that inappropriate missionary innuendo will stop.

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by Corey McKrill at 3:25 PM on 08 Sep 2006

contrary to true conservation efforts

This tactic has worked for charismatic species, but it is also starting to become detrimental to true conservation efforts.

Today, for example, it's quite clear that anti-whaling protests in the Antarctic are more about fund-raising than conserving whales.

by davidintokyo at 5:34 PM on 08 Sep 2006

Cool

I had no idea this thing existed.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:47 PM on 08 Sep 2006

as the worm turns

Naked mole rats became an improbable favorite of children, when they were debuted in a few places in the US. The National Zoo has a live camera on a much-crossed intersection in their artificial den; and it is one of the few cameras that the zoo has which pretty reliably will show some critter present.

Large invertebrates are fascinating, in part because of how they deal with biomechanical constraints. In the case of this lily-worm, I would guess length is not so serious a constraint, as width. Or diameter, if we assume it is segmented, with circular segments.

The genus name, Driloleiros, has an eyebrow-raising etymology. The leiros part means "lily-like," which presumably refers to the worm's fragrance. (Star-gazer lilies actually are kind of stinky and over-powering, IMHO; perhaps the describers were referring to something else, of which I have no clear memory.) But drilos is obscure, and just appears in one or two places. It might be used by zoologists as a way to say "worm," though the usual Greek word for "worm" is helmins, genitive helminthos, a root used in several names for worm taxa. In that case, it is a rather metaphorical worm, with a distinctive appearance. It seems the best lead on what the Greeks meant by drilos comes from an ancient Greek-Latin lexicon, in which it is translated by the Latin adjective verpus. That is derived from the noun verpa, verpae, which is used by one of the most obscene of Latin poets, Catullus, and means "The penis (as protruded from the foreskin)." Catullus also uses the adjective verpus, which seems to mean either "having the foreskin drawn back," or "circumcised."

Which suggests it might merit a peek, to get an idea what those worm experts have in mind.

God knows how they stumbled on such an obscure word. They seem to be treading awfully close to the outer margins of family-friendly zoology.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:04 AM on 09 Sep 2006

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