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Sticker of Giant Palouse earthworm
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Giant Palouse earthworm

Driloleirus americanus
Name means: “lily-like worm”
Eats: Leftovers and dead thingsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The giant Palouse earthworm is a big, pale, almost white worm. A grown-up one is about as long as a school ruler. It lives deep underground in the hills of the north-west United States, and it is so hard to find that people once thought it had died out.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect at all, it has no legs! But kids find it on every bug hunt, so it lives in Bug Wiki too.
Lives in
The Palouse hills in Washington and Idaho, USA, under grassy prairie
Length
20 cm (7.9 in)
Top speed
about 0.04 km/h (0.02 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It has no teeth and no sting. It is very rare, so if you ever find one, leave it in the soil.
What does it eat?
Like other earthworms, it eats soil and the rotting bits of plants inside it. That helps keep the ground healthy.
For real!Photo of Giant Palouse earthworm
Picture by Chris Baugher. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Giant Palouse earthworm about 20 cm long (7.9 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)A house cat about 50 cm (20 in)
as long as 6 toy building bricks in a rowas long as 1 bananas end to endcould run across a dinner table in 90 seconds

How big is Giant Palouse earthworm compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It can dig tunnels as deep as 4 and a half metres, deeper than a house is tall.

2

When summer gets dry, it crawls deep down and rests in a kind of summer sleep until the rain comes back.

3

In the 1980s people thought it was extinct, but scientists dug up living ones again in 2010 and 2012.

4

It has a cousin in Australia, the giant Gippsland earthworm, that can grow to about a metre long.

you asked

Most asked questions about Giant Palouse earthworm

?Is the giant Palouse earthworm extinct?

No. People thought so for a while, but scientists found living ones in 2010 and again in 2012.

?How big is the giant Palouse earthworm?

A grown-up one is usually about 20 centimetres long.

?Does the giant Palouse earthworm smell like lilies?

Old stories said so, but the worms found in 2010 did not smell like lilies and did not spit.

Myth buster

Myth: The giant Palouse earthworm smells like lilies and can spit to defend itself.

Truth: People used to believe that, but the worms found in 2010 did not smell like lilies and did not spit.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Driloleirus americanus
Named by
Smith, 1897
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Megascolecidae
Classification
Clitellata > Megascolecidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Washington giant earthworm

Where the facts come from

  1. Giant Palouse earthworm (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Chris Baugher. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

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