Giant worm found in gutter of house in China

A half-meter-long earthworm was found in the gutter of a house on Thursday in southwest China. Li Zhiwei, a worker from the Forestry Bureau of Binchuan County, saw the slinking worm by the gutter when he was putting out some Chinese dates to dry in the backyard.

"It looked like a snake, I looked carefully and found it was actually a huge earthworm," said Li, who added that he decided to keep the worm and raise it in his backyard. The elongated earthworm has attracted neighbors, who have never seen one this long before.

Depending on the species, an adult earthworm can be anywhere from 10 mm long and 1 mm wide to 3 m long and over 25 mm wide. An earthworm's body size is closely related to their environment, and depends on variables like the weather, precipitation and the texture of the soil.

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They tend to grow longer and larger during humid seasons if they intake sufficient nutrition and have no natural enemies. Biologists plan to study the long earthworm that Li found and define its classification and perhaps identify the reason why it was able to grow so long.