[T]he worms use this toxin in a behavior called capping. They have been observed crawling on an earthworm and rubbing their head over the earthworm.... Shortly after, the earthworm becomes less mobile. The hammerhead then secretes digestive enzymes and sucks the liquefied tissue into its gut. When digestion is complete, the worm’s mouth also serves as its anus....
The worms can’t be cut because the fragments will reproduce into additional hammerheads.... Instead, the worm can be immobilized with a dose of salt.... "The worms should be placed in plastic bags with alcohol, vinegar, or salt and frozen. The big thing is to freeze them before disposal."
The worms, we're told, seem to have traveled here from "Asia" in the soil accompanying "exotic plants."
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How fitting. The jokes write themselves, so I'll leave that to others.
Stop them? Encourage them!
Shark week.
I guess I'm supposed to be worried, scary looking worm from Asia with scary sounding toxin, but I'm not. I mean, it's an invasive species, which is always bad. But tetrodotoxin isn't anything new around here - it's on the skin of every newt you'll ever see all over the US. (The ones out west are particularly toxic. So much so that the garter snakes out there that eat them ingest so much of the toxin that they become one of the world's very few *poisonous* - as opposed to *venomous* - snakes.) Avoid picking up a newt, or a hammerhead worm, and licking one and you'll be fine. I've handled lots of newts, and honestly usually forget to wash my hands afterwards, to no apparent effect.
As for the pufferfish, I've seen video (narrated by a British guy so you know it's real!) of a pod of dolphins passing around a pufferfish to get high off the tetrodotoxin. I know dolphins sort of have resting smile-face, but the ones in that video looked extra smiley.
The most populous snake in the world, the blindsnake, spread all over the world by living in the soil of houseplants shipped hither and yon. Wouldn't surprise me if they preyed on these worms.
The presence of worms secreting neurotoxins in DC explains a lot.
I'm sure I won't be the first for whom this thought immediately came to mind..Ah, ha, that explains what has happened to our current President. Morning doses of small amounts of tetrodotoxin...maybe not everyday but frequently enough to make him practically fall asleep when he is visiting with other world leaders.
WHERE in Asia do they come from? Pakistan? Japan?
Certainly not from that country that begins with c but can't be named.
John Henry
We told them to close the southern border.
Crawl into Biden's brain, please. Worm be doing us a favor.
Or would we even notice?
Why on earth should we be worried about poisonous worms in DC? Place is full of them. Just put up a fence.
DC was already full of toxic worms. They're on the dating apps.
Avoid picking up a newt, or a hammerhead worm, and licking one and you'll be fine.
I shall do my best to resist.
All bets are off if I start licking toads first.
This looks like the model for one of the snake-like creatures in the sci-fi film Prometheus. Weird.
We started finding those in the southeast U.S. about five years ago. They seem to kill off the earthworm population and multiple quickly. I think they the culprits that destroyed my garden.
At first we would catch them and throw them in a baggie with a lot of salt and place them in the garage freezer for a week or two. Then off to the landfill they went. We finally gave up because there were just too many.
Anyone else gettin a Heinlineian Puppet Masters vibe?
I'm more worried about these worms than I am "climate change"
Seems like every other week I'm reading about some critter or invasive plant that has come over here via a shipment from Asia or Africa. Or rare animals that people want as a 'pet' for a few weeks until they realize they cannot keep up with watching it, so they simply release them into the environment. Like pythons in the Everglades and/or the intercoastal network in Florida.
Nothing much we can do. We've now got giant African snails, green iguanas, brown or Cuban anoles, Burmese pythons, Cuban tree frogs, cane toads, Wisconsinites, and just reams of invasive plant life just here in Florida.
Seeing a new species of worm in DC really isn't that uncommon. We see those every 2 years.
Per the Book of Knowledge they were discovered in South Carolina in 1903.
John Henry
1903 not 2003
John Henry
Stop being a xenophobe
Gutfeld has been preaching for weeks about these "summer stories." Yesterday it was Cocaine Sharks. They're not real, they are a result of lazy journalists eager to fill space.
Toxic worms invading D.C. area-
Oh! I thought this article was about the Squad.
My mistake.
They have a lot of competition.
Found in Jack Smith's poop.
We in Northeast US are enjoying all kinds of visiting species: Eastern swallow wort, Japanese knotweed and, recently, "jumping worms." They resemble "good" earthworms but as the name suggests they get very agitated if you poke them, and they damage the soil. Good loamy-humus soil becomes a wasteland of black granules like coffee grounds, with little nutrient value and poor drainage.
If you find 'em, nuke 'em.
The biggest threat: Impossible to distinguish between these and 90% of Federal Employees.
If only ....
A hydrogen bomb would probably be enough. Especially if during working hours.
So now that they've arrived in DC, after over a century of US "invasion," their existence is suddenly an issue?
It is always important to remember, when reading modern journalistic writing, that (1) History started this morning and nothing ever happened before NOW that would affect the story being narrated; (B) Omission of pertinent facts, facts often known to many readers, enhances the narrative, which the reporting is meant to promote in a sensationalist and activist manner; and (*) The story is presented in a sensationalist but incomplete manner such that the reader cannot discern the truth of any numerical or math-based "facts" presented.
Also, listed points will jump from numbers to letters to symbols to annoy the readers.
I, for one, expect these worms to appear on the menu of DC restaurants within a year, much like two previous species denounced as deadly to the environment, spiny urchins (roe) and lionfish (fillets).
Wait until you see what my snake-like mushroom-headed worm secretes!
And talk about invasive...
D.C. already filled to the brim with invertebrates; and more dangerous ones.
Nuke the site from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.
Hammerhead worms are now threatening life in DC?
I don't think these new poisonous worms stand much of a chance. That particular DC ecological niche has already been filled to overflowing by corrupt politicians and unelected federal bureaucrats.
Bob Vila sez... Neutron Bomb is a sure thing.
First saw one of those about ten years ago here in the mid-south. It's body was buried in a layer of leaves except for about 5 inches which was upright like a cobra and the head, which is flat and more like a sliced mushroom with the stem attached, was triangular, shiny/wet looking and was ... undulating.
Had no idea what it was (and info was sparse on the net at that time) but it was one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. That waving, shiny head!!!
Went inside for a jar (it was definitely a keeper) and a pair of gloves but it was gone when I returned.
The most toxic spider is a daddy long legs, but their mouths are too small to penetrate our skin.
There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't find it.
I bet licking one would give you an awesome buzz. We need to bring in the DEA on this.
I blame Humper Biden.
The hammerhead stall is a very pleasant airplane maneuver, go vertically up and just before you'd come back down kick the airplane over sideways and come down a short distance away. Most pleasant of all is kick it into a one-turn spin in that sideways bit. It's going so slowly through the air that there are no g-forces yet the world spins quietly around once. I don't know if it's named after the worm.
Somebody said that Australia has the worst animals, like things with 9 anuses.
Sorry, Tina. That toxic daddy longlegs story is a myth.
OK. I've seen your anti-DC comments, but have you all forgotten the invasive vermin that ALREADY infest DC? Lawyers! The place is crawlingly with us -- I mean them (I left years ago).
By the way: What percentage of DC voters voted for Biden against Trump in 2020? 92.1%. If Biden had been running against the hammerhead worm, what would his percentage have been, more or less? I doubt he'd have cracked 80%.
I thought there was mostly maggots in DC.
Good Lord!!!
Toxin-secreting hammerhead worms are invading the D.C. area.
Look, I'm not crazy about politicians, either, but...
Just train those damned nutrias to eat the worms
Invading species or Natural habitat?
LDay. Maybe it is. But the mountain man who told me hasn't been wrong about anything else yet. And he and I have dealt with a lot of inescapable wildlife in crawl spaces together.
There's nothing like rolling over onto your back to discover yourself face to face with a possum clinging to a floor beam, no happier to see you than you her.
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