The giant Gippsland earthworm, ''Megascolides australis'', is one of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

's 1,000 native

earthworm An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. Th ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

Description

These giant earthworms average long and in

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for ...

and can reach in length; however, their body is able to expand and contract making them appear much larger. On average they weigh about . They have a dark purple head and a blue-grey body, and about 300 to 400 body segments.

Ecology

They live in the

subsoil Subsoil is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. Like topsoil, it is composed of a variable mixture of small particles such as sand, silt and clay, but with a much lower percentage of organic matter and humus, and it ...

of blue, grey or red

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

soils along stream banks and some south- or west-facing hills of their remaining

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

which is in

Gippsland Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia. These worms live in deep

burrow An Eastern chipmunk at the entrance of its burrow A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to construct a space suitable for habitation or temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of sh ...

systems and require water in their environment to respire. They have relatively long life spans for

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and can take 5 years to reach maturity. They

breed A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slig ...

in the warmer months and produce

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

capsules that are to in length which are laid in their burrows. When these worms hatch in 12 months they are around long at birth. Unlike most earthworms which deposit castings on the surface, they spend almost all their time in burrows about in depth and deposit their castings there, and can generally only be flushed out by heavy rain. They are usually very sluggish, but when they move rapidly through their burrows, it can cause an audible gurgling or sucking sound which allows them to be detected.

Threatened status

Gippsland earthworm colonies are small and isolated, and the species' low reproductive rates and slow maturation make those small populations vulnerable.Victoria Resources Online: Giant Gippsland Earthworm
. Retrieved on July 23, 2012. Their natural habitats are grasslands, and while they can survive beneath pastures, cultivation, heavy cattle grazing and effluent run-off are adversarial to the species. The Gippsland earthworm requires moist loamy soil to thrive; dense tree planting negatively affects soil humidity, which in turn negatively affects the species' habitat. No successful breeding has yet been achieved in captivity.

Education

Until it closed in 2012 amid animal welfare concerns, Wildlife Wonderland Park near

Bass, Victoria Bass () is a small rural town south-east of Melbourne via the South Gippsland and Bass Highways, in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. At the 2006 census, Bass and the surrounding area had a population of 937. The town is ...

, was home to the Giant Earthworm Museum. Inside the worm-shaped museum, visitors could crawl through a magnified replica of a worm burrow and a simulated worm's stomach. Displays and educational material on the giant Gippsland earthworm and other natural history of Gippsland were also featured.

Tourism

Interest in the giant Gippsland earthworm has been exploited by the local tourist industry with an annual Karmai Festival in

Korumburra Korumburra is a town in the Australian state of Victoria. It is located on the South Gippsland Highway, south-east of Melbourne, in the South Gippsland Shire local government area. At the Korumburra had an urban population of 3,639. Surroun ...

. In the

Boonwurrung language The Boonwurrung language, also anglicised as Bunurong, Bun wurrung, and other variant spellings, is an Aboriginal Australian language traditionally spoken by the Bunurong people, Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation, Kulin nation of central V ...

it is said to have been called ''karmai''.

References

External links

Giant Gippsland earthworm
at the

Museum Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facil ...

website {{Taxonbar, from=Q141602 Megascolecidae Vulnerable fauna of Australia Animals described in 1878 Environment of Victoria (Australia) Endemic fauna of Australia Taxa named by Frederick McCoy