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Boy finds giant backyard

worm that his mum calls
'the stuff of nightmares'
Liz McDonald · 16:02, Sep 02 2022

CHRIS DOMIGAN

Barnaby Domigan, aged 9, with the giant

earthworm he found in his Christchurch
garden.

It’s not unusual for a Kiwi kid to find a

worm in the backyard.

But Barnaby Domigan was delighted to

discover the biggest worm his family had
ever seen.

Barnaby, aged 9, was playing with his

younger siblings after school when he
found the giant earthworm by a stream
the bottom of the family’s garden in
Burnside, Christchurch.

“I grabbed it with a stick. I thought wow,

what an amazing discovery. I thought it
was a worm, but I had no idea what it
really was.”

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His mum, Jo, estimated the creature was

about a metre long.

“It was ginormous. He was most

impressed with himself.”

Jo said while she considered the worm

“the stuff of nightmares”, Barnaby was
delighted.

“What a find, he thought it was

wonderful.”

Barnaby, who said he likes learning

about “weird animals”, described the
worm as feeling cold and squishy.

“I thought it was massive, and amazing,

and a little bit disgusting,” he said.

After dad Chris took Barnaby’s photo

with the worm, they put it back into the
garden, although they were not sure
whether it was alive or dead.

Insects on their own in NZ

STUFF

Bugs are declining around the world, but

there's no budget to investigate the issue in
New Zealand (first published Jan, 2021).

John Marris, curator of the University of

Lincoln’s entomology research
collection, said while the worm looked in
the photo “a bit like the creature from
the black lagoon”, it appeared to be a
species of native earthworm.

Marris said giant earthworms were once

widespread, but were now were most
likely to be found in undisturbed areas
such as forests. It was rare to find them
in a domestic garden, he said.

“There are some very large native

earthworms known – a metre isn’t
beyond the borders of reason.”

Marris said with 171 native earthworm

species, a close examination would be
needed to exactly identify an individual
specimen.

According to Te Ara encyclopedia,

several New Zealand native species can
be over 30cm long, and the longest,
Spenceriella gigantea, can grow to 1.3m
in length.

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