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Giant Predatory Worms Are Invading France (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: In a Peer J study published on May 22, "Giant worms chez moi!" zoologist Jean-Lou Justine of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, entomologist colleagues, and Pierre Gros, outline a discovery that "highlights an unexpected blind spot of scientists and authorities facing an invasion by conspicuous large invasive animals." About 100 citizen scientists ultimately contributed to the assessment of this alien invasion, identifying five giant predatory worm species in France that grow up to 10 inches long. The study relied on contributors' worm sightings, reported "mainly by email, sometimes by telephone." Researchers requested photographs and details about locality. In 2013, the Washington Post reports, "a group of terrorized kindergartners claimed they saw a mass of writhing snakes in their play field." These were giant flatworms! The study concludes that the alien creatures appear to reproduce asexually. They prey on other, smaller earthworms, stunning them with toxins. "The planarian also produces secretions from its headplate and body that adhere it to the prey, despite often sudden violent movements of the latter during this stage of capture," researcher note. In other words, the hammerheads produce a substance that allows them to stick to victims while killing them. The study points out that invasive alien flatworms have been spotted in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Australia. But the five species of hammerhead flatworms invading France are giants, growing up to 27 centimeters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Here in Victoria they can grow up to 3 metres in length. 27cm worms are runts.
France has fought a hell of a lot more wars than America and they didn't hang back in either WW1 or WW2.
Apparently you've never heard of the Phoney War, so I'll tell you how it all went down:
Germany invades Poland and conquers it in 5 weeks. France and England largely stood by and did nothing, except for a small operation called the Saar Offensive, which officially began the Phoney War. This offensive was so light that it didn't even tickle Germany. The USSR (on friendly terms with Germany at this point) invaded Finland, and then Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. This caused France to get cold feet, so they picked up what meager forces they sent and ran home.
That is a very brief summary of what happened, and you'll find it to be accurate if you research it. Granted, I've omitted many details, obviously, because of how short I wrote it, but it's hard to overstate how little of an effort that France and England made to stop Germany for TEN MONTHS after the invasion of Poland began. Anyways, immediately after France withdrew, they assumed their WWI playbook and hunkered down in the trenches in the Maginot line. It didn't work though: France didn't bother to fortify the region near Belgium's border thinking Germany wouldn't go there, but neutral Belgium and Holland seemed ok with allowing Germany's forces to quickly shift to the west and bypass the Maginot line entirely. In spite of France having a large and well armed and prepared Army (which they never tried to use to break Polish invasion,) they surrendered in 6 weeks.
So in other words, Europe as a whole sat on its ass (except for Germany, Austria, and their allies) for TEN FREAKING MONTHS! It's one thing for a country separated by an entire ocean, but good fuckin lord, practically the only reason a European country would take action during this period was after they were already invaded.
It was only after the fall of France that a serious allied war effort actually began. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor about 14 months after that. The US was isolationist at the time because we wanted nothing to do with your kings, queens, kaisers, and fuhrers because they looked all the same to us, and still do: But the lesson we took from Pearl Harbor is that even if you don't want a war, you're going to get one anyways. This meant we had to, among other things, assist the fucking USSR that we had to go to proxy wars with while we funded Europe's reconstruction with the Marshall plan, even though it wasn't our fault that they decided to blow themselves up. Here we are, 80 years later, and one third of Europe wants to be fascist again. And that is NOT an exaggeration:
https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
Now that Europeans aren't allowed to see what today's fascists actually say because it's censored, then all they see is the mild stuff that they sympathize with, and then they start liking them. What the fuck did you think was going to happen when you banned hate speech? Just because you don't see or hear the fascists doesn't mean they aren't there (for the most part, the only fascists you actually see in Europe call themselves antifa.) Some things never change...
I don't hate Europe or Europeans by the way, just the stupid ones who think tossing dog feces under the rug makes it go away, and then proceed to tell you that their house doesn't actually smell like shit.
The French did a fair job in preventing Paris not getting bombed to chunky kibbles.
Pre-war Nazi Germany was basically Isis + perfect organization + highest standard high tech military and organizational skills + 80 million people. Losing out in a blitzkrieg to an opponent of that magnitude isn't all that shameful.
To emphasize: In Operation Paukenschlag the US captured a German Sub. They couldn't copy it because it was too high tech. That's how advanced German military was back then. It's only thanks to the all-out stupidity and lunacy of Hitler and his goons that Germany lost despite having the most effective military force at the time. Luckily. If Hitler had had his 7 senses about him, Europe would be Nazi territory today. What happened though was that the Germans willingly went to serve as a tool for the globally extended suicide of a madman.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Chinese for the rescue! No matter how awkward that stuff tastes, just tell them it's an expensive aphrodisiac, and see those worms being decimated within months!
If I understand correctly, these invasive species feed on native earthworms.
If I remember correctly, earthworms have a relevant role in the conservation of top soil.
Will these invasive species have an impact on the conservation of top soil?
In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)