I found one of these on whipping around on a potted plant last year. I’ve never seen anything like this before. When I first found it I was so afraid it was a raccoon roundworm since we have raccoons roaming through our neighborhood and I’d just read several articles about raccoon latrines and roundworms and how dangerous they are. I was so relieved when I found it matched the description of a Gordian worm, especially since I discovered it next to an area where I’d been having problems with grasshoppers.

Thanks for posting this! I too saw these worms hanging out enjoying the rain on my bushes here on Whidbey Island. I was thinking how odd it was seeing inch worms moving in the rain and then looked closer. I was rather freaked to see how long these worms were and asked kids not to touch the bushes.. I am glad to know they are more interested in grasshopper/crickets than humans. (visions of roundworms from biology class were going through my head when I saw them) We have heard reports of higher than normal grasshoppers in the area for this summer so maybe this is why I am seeing so many here.

I did find a reference online for Soil Biology Guide by D. L. Dindal (editor). 1990. Wiley, New York. However, it’s out of print and the only copy I could find was going for $2,400 on amazon.com, which is out of my price range :).

Hi Anna – they can be extremely common in aquatic environments. I don’t think they are all that common on land though. This is the first time I’ve seen them on my property (or anywhere on land for that matter), and I tend to have an eye for little critters. Must be the right combination of conditions this year or something like that. Still trying to figure out what creature they would have hatched out from. We’re not into grasshopper/cricket season yet.

I have certainly seen some fairly big white worms (pot worms) before, but I can tell you for sure that these are not them.
🙂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchytraeidae

http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Whitewrm.htm

I have a worm cafe wormery & there are a lot of them in the bottom tray which collects liquid. I’ve taken a picture of them for you. Image of the worms may not be clear because they do flail around a bit.

http://i.imagehost.org/0254/potworm_Enchytraeidae.jpg

I’ve also noticed that they are present in other trays of my wormery (most likely due to the high moist conditions/areas of my plastic wormery) & on certain types of high moisture foods, but they haven’t posed as a threat to the worms, springtails or other organisms that I’ve noticed.

Can’t remember where I found this, but as I’ve mentioned they like really moist conditions, if they clump together in a corner, like a ball, you can use them as bird food, but personally I just leave them or pour them back into another wormery from the collected liquid feed rather than have birds eat them & have a dump in my garden or on me.

Hope this helps.