"They seem so symbolic of a healthy ecosystem,” Dobson says. For their stellar reputation, they can thank none other than Charles Darwin. In addition to developing the theory of evolution, Darwin studied earthworms for 40 years at his home in England.
With characteristic curiosity and rigor, the naturalist conducted all manner of earthworm experiments: He observed their reaction to the sound of the bassoon (none) and to the vibrations of a C note played on the piano (panic). He watched how they pulled leaves into their burrows, and tested their problem-solving skills by offering them small triangles of paper instead (most figured out how to drag them by a corner). Darwin also measured how quickly worms covered up a large paving stone in his garden with their castings. He estimated that they could move at least 10 tons of soil per acre per year.
Some call them crazy worms. Pick one up, and you'll see why, as the creepy-crawly jerks, writhes and springs out of your hand. (It may even leave its tail behind, as a grim souvenir.) And now, scientists are finding the wrigglers have spread to at least 15 states across the U.S.
The worms of the genus Amynthas — also known as snake worms, Asian jumping worms and Alabama jumpers, according to Smithsonian Magazine — are a highly invasive lot that first made their way to North America in the 19th century, stowed away on ships carrying plants and dirt. Since then, they've spread, well, like crazy, and have now been sighted in more than a dozen states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma, Newsweek.com reported.
They resemble common earthworms, only smaller and brownish in color. However, their reputation is far more sinister. Adult crazy worms reproduce quickly and without mates, laying clutches of eggs the same color as the soil, according to Smithsonian. Once they hatch, the worms swiftly devour the nutrients in the topsoil around them, leaving behind a loose, grainy mess that resembles coffee grounds.
This nutrient-depleted soil erodes quickly, leaving little sustenance for native plants, or competing species of worms and fungi, Brad Herrick, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told PBS Wisconsin.
Variously known as jumping worms, snake worms, Alabama jumpers, and Jersey wrigglers, common Amynthas species are a super-powered version of the more familiar, squishy languidness of the garden-variety European earthworms (whose genus name, Lumbricus, itself sounds plodding). And their rapid spread into new areas has led to a surge of concern about these worms.
This vigorous lifestyle can quickly lead to full-blown infestations — and decimated topsoil. Perhaps it’s no wonder jumping worms recently have been invading the internet, too.
Syracuse, N.Y. – A potentially problematic invasive algae has been found in Skaneateles Lake.
Known by the cheery name of starry stonewort, the algae could cause problems for the lake, an angler’s haven and the unfiltered source of drinking water for Syracuse and suburbs.
“It’s like many aquatic invasives in that it can take over and push out natural vegetation,” said David Carr, project manager for the starry stonewort collaborative in the Finger Lakes. “It can ruin fish habitat, and if it gets thick enough you can’t pull a boat through.”
Don Shump, owner of Philadelphia Bee Co., has tended hives around the city for more than a decade, harvesting and selling neighborhood-specific varieties, donning bee beards at educational workshops, and extracting colonies of honeybees, wasps, and hornets from places they don’t belong. One day in fall 2019—right around the time the first adult spotted lanternfly populations exploded in Philadelphia—he entered the honey house, where a coworker was processing the harvest, and was hit with an unfamiliar aroma.
“It smelled like maple bacon,” Shump says. “I didn't know what these girls had gotten into, but it was something different.”
The harvest looked different, too: thick in texture with a deep reddish-brown color. Late summer and fall, when asters, goldenrod, and Japanese knotweed are in bloom, is the season for dark honey. But Shump had never seen anything like this, and beekeepers around Southeast Pennsylvania were seeing the same thing—an unusually dark harvest with a surprisingly smoky, robust flavor.
This is wild. Spotted lanternflies are giving honey a delicious smoked taste in Southeast Pennsylvania.
Spotted lanternflies are easy enough to spot, with ruby red streaks beneath black-and-white wings that blend like an abstract expressionist painting.
But six years after the first sightings of them, Pennsylvanians have been told to squash them on sight. They exact a huge toll on agriculture. The insects feed off 70 plant species, including fruit trees and grapevines, and they could cost Pennsylvania $324 million per year in lost crops and 2,800 agricultural jobs if left unchecked.
Squashing the adults won't solve the problem, however. Their eggs are odorless to humans and hard to find, tucked into wheel wells, tree trunks, pots and crates.
In an unusual chain of events this spring, during which multiple failsafes were missed, ash trees potentially infested with emerald ash borers made their way from Maryland to Maine. They were sold at Lowe’s stores throughout the state. Now the state and the company are working to track those trees down.
Eighty trees were shipped to eight Lowe’s stores in Maine — all the chain’s stores in the state except the Presque Isle location — from a nursery in Connecticut. The Connecticut nursery had obtained the trees from a nursery in Maryland. Under federal and state quarantine invasive insect regulations, those trees never should have left Maryland or Connecticut, according to Maine agricultural officials.