[Vision2020] NPR: Scientists Capture Elusive Giant Palouse Earthworm

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Tuesday 27 April 2010 17:37:31 Wayne Price wrote:
> This could be a good news-bad news story.

I think it is mostly a good news story, illustrating that diversity 
among earthworm species extends itself even to our latitude and 
longitude.

> We have confirmed that the worm is a giant palouse earthworm and
> they exist,  the bad news is that these were the last two.

Since earthworms, generally, have been in the soil for six hundred 
million years, and are suggested by some scientists as being the most 
important species in the history of Earth's biology, it really would 
be huge news if these were the last two. Even if we restrict 
ourselves to considering the last two of this particular giant 
Palouse species, I think it unlikely that all of these worms are so 
silly as to allow themselves so close to the surface as to be 
discovered by various predators, including H. sapiens.

In the possible, but unlikely, scenario that humans waste their time 
trying to track down and eradicate this specific species of worms to 
protect property rights, or some other such non-ecological reason, it 
might turn into a bad-news story. However, Hog Heaven farmers have 
been plowing and seeding and harvesting above these worms for the 
better part of a century without ill effects to either species. Only 
in the last handful of years has some curiosity has been raised, and, 
unless most individuals of the earthworm species turn out to be 
wildly exceptional in some way, the likely result is that they will 
be ignored.

In some science fiction or fantasy world, say a planet-Earth-based 
generation of Dune-Arrakis, for example, the worms might be in some 
danger. If some Vandal scientist figured out how to genetically 
modify them to grow 100 times larger, and then to encourage them to 
produce some fantastic new fertilizer or spice or drug that could be 
sold for riches even more addictive than ... well, you get the idea. 
The worms are probably in danger only if they are discovered to be 
worth more money than the crops that are presently grown above them.

Frank Herbert, RIP. We're going to re-read, not re-write, your work.


Ken