While on our walks in the warm days of spring and summer, my daughter and I will often see earthworms attempting to make their way across the sidewalk. This tricky maneuver often ends badly for the worm, so in an act of kindness my daughter will remove the struggling beings and place them in the grass.
But nature is a cruel temptress, and we discovered that some of the worms she saved were not the standard European night-crawlers, but an invasive species called the Asian Jumping Worm.
As Cornell University notes: “Asian jumping worms devour organic matter more rapidly than their European counterparts, stripping the forest of the layer critical for seedlings and wildflowers. Jumping worms grow twice as fast, reproduce more quickly, and can infest soils at high densities. In areas of heavy infestation, native plants, soil invertebrates, salamanders, birds, and other animals may decline. These invasive worms can severely damage the roots of plants in nurseries, gardens, forests, and turf.”
In other words, the opposite of the normal earthworm. In researching these worms I also found that they are asexual (parthenogenetic) and mature in just 60 days, so each year they can have two hatches. The eggs are brown and small and look like seeds and lay dormant during the winter, waking when the air temperature reaches 50F.
I mean these babies sound like perfectly adapted killing machines, and are just another example of Nature keeping things interesting out here in the great world. Apparently we need more sidewalks.
whoisfenton 