File photo (REUTERS/Luis Enrique Ascui)
An Australian woman discovered a giant earthworm squirming above ground this week after torrential rains in Queensland unearthed the insect.
The photo posted by Australia’s 7 News on Tuesday showed Kelli Mace holding up the two-foot worm, believed to be a digaster longmani, with sticks. The picture was taken on Tamborine Mountain in South East Queensland, where heavy rain has been pounding the region in the last week.
Digaster longmani are rarely spotted because they remain buried in the ground until rain sweeps and flood their homes, news.com.au reported. They are one of the largest worm species and are only found in South East Queensland and northern New South Wales.
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Robert Raven, Head of Terrestrial Biodiversity at the Queensland Museum, told the news site the earthworm in Mace’s photo could measure up to three feet long once it relaxes and stretches out.
“In the 1970s, I was walking through Lamington National Park and could hear them beneath me as they gurgled through some water,” Raven recalled. “Seeing them is a sign we are getting good rain.”
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