Not only are crazy snake worms nonnative, but every other worm you’ve ever seen in these regions is, too. “Those glaciers basically exterminated all the earthworms, and so all the earthworms that are found now in that part of the country are all nonnative and mostly invasive in nature,” says Herrick. For tens of thousands of years, forests there evolved in the absence of worms. This is especially problematic for ecosystems in areas of the Northeast and upper Midwest, where glaciers once scoured the land. Crazy snake worms also cycle nutrients, says Herrick, but they do it so quickly and so superficially-aboveground, not below-that erosion and rain often wash away all the good stuff before the plants can make use of it. Gardeners love earthworms because they “churn up the soil and create spaces for nutrients to flow and water to get to the roots,” says Bradley Herrick, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum. Whereas some worm species like to burrow down deep, these worms conspicuously wriggle around the uppermost layer of soil, spending all day sliding through the leaf litter and munching on organic material. As a kid, I remember going digging for earthworms, the more standard variety, to use as fishing bait.
Gross, sure, but are they really crazy? Yes, yes, they are. Sometimes the things even leave their tails behind-a behavior meant to fool predators. Try to pick one up and it’ll leap from your hand like a fish out of water. Take a step into my woods in August or September, after the worms have spent the summer growing to half a foot long, and you can watch as scores of them suddenly emerge from beneath your foot and the surrounding leaf litter. Since then, crazy snake worms have spread out across Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other states.
Originally from Korea and Japan, these annelids are thought to have arrived in the United States 50-some years ago as stowaways in the pots of decorative plants. Named for the way they writhe and leap off the ground like snakes on a hot plate, crazy snake worms are an invasive species on the move through the eastern half of the country.
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