Rare giant earthworm found at WSU

MOSCOW, Idaho — A University of Idaho graduate student recently found a rare giant Palouse earthworm.

Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon is apparently the first person in nearly two decades to find a specimen of the worm, which can reportedly grow to 3 feet long. She found the 6-inch white worm in May while digging at Washington State University's Smoot Hill Ecological Preserve near Palouse, Wash.

The Palouse occupies an estimated 2 million acres of northcentral Idaho and southeastern Washington.

Earthworm experts who gathered for a workshop in Sanchez-de Leon's native Puerto Rico in November confirmed Sanchez-de Leon's identification, as did Northwest earthworm expert William M. Fender-Westwind of Portland, Ore.

"By earthworm standards, they're pretty cool," said James Johnson, the head of the university's Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences Department.

Johnson and an associate found several of the giant worms in 1978 in a forest clearing near the university. Relatives of the Palouse earthworms in Australia can reach 10 feet long.