Over the past at least three hundred years, stories have been circulating in various parts of Japan about worms of unprecedented length digging into the ground. They talk about the observation of 2-meter, 5-meter and much larger worms, similar to earthworms.
In Japan, there are indeed large earthworms called Bipaliinae, some of which can reach a meter in length, but nothing is known about the larger hammerheads. Could these be isolated cases of observation of mutant worms? It is not excluded. However, let's move on to the stories themselves about meeting with giant Japanese worms.
In Japan, there are indeed large earthworms called Bipaliinae, some of which can reach a meter in length, but nothing is known about the larger hammerheads. Could these be isolated cases of observation of mutant worms? It is not excluded. However, let's move on to the stories themselves about meeting with giant Japanese worms.
Hammerhead or hammerhead worm.
Several stories of encountering huge worms came from Hyogo Prefecture on the island of Honshu. One such record dates back to 1712, in which a large landslide descended in a village, after which people saw huge worms in a pile of earth. One was 1.5 meters long, and the second was almost 3 meters. Soon, another landslide came down in the same area, and there in the ground they saw a crawling worm 4.5 meters long.
A more recent case occurred in 1996 in Mikata County, which is located in the mountains of Hyogo Prefecture. A farmer discovered a worm, one meter long and 2 cm thick, while planting a tree. It was not a hammerhead worm, it looked like an ordinary earthworm and this was the first time a farmer encountered an earthworm of this size in all his years in the area.
Giant worms have also been seen in other parts of Japan. In Okayama Prefecture, a woman claimed to have seen a 3m worm in a field. The worm was very active, possibly disturbed by agricultural work. Another worker in the same prefecture discovered a piece of a worm that had been accidentally chopped off with a shovel, and this piece belonged to a creature that in its entirety reached 3.5 or 4 meters. The rest of the worm could not be found.
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Australia is home to the largest and thickest earthworms in the world. They can reach 80 cm in length, and according to rumors, even three meters. They are found only in the rural Gippsland region of Victoria and are considered vulnerable. They were not found outside Australia.
Earthworms from 60 cm to a meter in length were found on the island of Shikoku, on the Izu Peninsula, the Kii and Nara Peninsulas. And the most unusual find was made in 1997 in Fukuoka Prefecture in the south of Kyushu. The Japanese Sato and his friend saw something near the river on the bank. which was originally taken for a piece of ham. They came closer and saw that it was a piece of cylindrical flesh, as if cut off from a large worm.
The piece was 30 cm long and 20 cm in diameter (incredibly thick worm!) And was covered with thin moist skin, on the surface of which you could see segments like on the body of an earthworm. The color of the worm was brownish "like a smoked sausage." There was no sign of bone in the piece of flesh, and both ends of the piece were torn, as if someone had ripped a worm apart with their bare hands.
The impression of eyewitnesses was that it was the remains of a huge earthworm. which was at least 10 meters long, and maybe longer. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the piece was very slimy and smelly, people left it where they found it and there are not even photos of it.
Farmers saw a similar-sized earthworm in Kyushu in the 1970s. The first eyewitness claimed that when he was working in his field, he noticed what at first seemed to him as a drum thrown to the ground, but when he approached, he noticed that IT was moving. The frightened farmer called a neighbor and then two men watched for a while how something very large was fussing under the ground and from time to time pieces of his body appeared from under the ground, similar to a fat snake.
When a piece of worm stuck out of the ground, it was "like a telegraph pole" wide and dark brown in color. It was clear that this was only a small part of a truly huge organism. When the farmers looked at this, they were very scared. Gradually, the worm completely went into the ground and they did not see it again.
A more recent case occurred in Sendai City just after the large earthquake on March 11, 2011. An eyewitness claimed to have walked across a field along a trail to inspect the earthquake's damage to nearby houses when he noticed what he first thought was crawling snakes.
As he went to the other side of the field, he discovered that they were not snakes, but at least 10 two-meter worms, which were entwined into one ball. According to an eyewitness, the earthquake probably disturbed these creatures and they crawled out of the ground to the surface.
There are large earthworms of the Pheretima sieboldi species in Japan, but they do not exceed 40-50 cm in length. Their large earthworms live in Germany (up to 60 cm in length), in Africa (1.8 meters in length) and in the United States (up to a meter in length), but they have not been found outside their habitats and they definitely do not fit the role of giants is 20 cm in diameter.
Japanese earthworm of the species Pheretima sieboldi.
Something may become clearer when you consider that many of the giant Japanese worms have been seen after landslides or after earthquakes. It is possible that they live at a very great depth and rise outward only in force majeure, therefore, scientists do not know anything about their existence. This can be suitable for not very thick 1.5-meter or 2-3 meter worms.
But this does not explain the existence of giants with bodies as thick as a telegraph pole. With such a large body at great depths, it would be problematic to move and power would be required many times more. After all, real life is not science fiction films, where sandworms the size of a skyscraper can easily exist. So the mystery remains.
