An invasion of unidentified worms has forced 50 herdsmen and their families from their grassland homes, taking 20,000 head of livestock with them, in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, state news agency Xinhua said Friday. The worms are packed up to 3,000 per square meter and chew through the grasslands like lawnmowers, leaving only brown soil in their wake, Xinhua said.
The agency described it as the worst plague in three decades. Local experts could not identify the 2-cm (1 inch) long, thorny green worm with black stripes and samples had been sent to Xinjiang Agricultural University, Xinhua said.
“The pasture was green a week ago. But now the worms are creeping around, and they even come into my house. I have to sweep them out several times an hour,” Xinhua quoted one herdsman as saying. Xinjiang has in the past used chickens, ducks and other birds to fight locusts, which are also a menace on the grasslands, but so far they have shown little interest in the pesky worms.
you do post some weird stuff lol
All I can think of is that film Tremors hah!
Was lucky enough to visit Australia a few years back and just outside Melbourne came across a place dedicated to the Giant Gippsland Earthworm which grows upto 8m long!
http://www.australianfauna.com/giantgippslandearthworm.php
http://www.australianfauna
Ah, more weird wormish things. I encountered a few of those as well while digging, but then the larger ones.
Well, they were larger till I cut them with my spade.
And some wild sand bees, which, apparently nest in ‘pack’. Which, ofcourse, made me a bit more cautious around the entrance .. but those dont really try to sting .. in fact, I was standing almost on their entrance. I didn’t notice till I started to wonder why they made such noise all of a sudden around me .. (there were constantly a few around me already for quite some time .. using the fresh wet clay for nest purposes).
Anyhow, the little creepers in the article are probably not uncommon/unknown, but normally not present in such numbers (if true ofcourse). Would be cool if they light up in the evening! Seen a lot of those little green ones, but not with black stripes.
Thorny, green, black stripes, eats grass… that’s not a worm, that’s a caterpillar. Which means it’ll metamorphose into a butterfly or moth pretty soon. Still sucks for the farmers, but at least it isn’t a permanent thing.
@ Michelle, me too! I hated that film and now its in my head!
(Not a big fan of things that go squirmy wormy or flutter – but don’t mind the creepy crawlys so much)
I don’t know why, but I instantly had to think about that “Do not look through” whole after reading this title…
um, eeww…
my friend has that DnD mini.
Creepy, i have fears and spiders arent’ one of them, but that thing is on the list.