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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.
A few herbs and spices, feature as a delicacy problem solved.
White flags broke out across the country.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Get a french chief, give him Armagnac, and then tell him that the worm tastes just like ortolan bunting.
Issue solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Here in Victoria they can grow up to 3 metres in length. 27cm worms are runts.
The worm is the spice the spice is the worm!
Let me know when these little guys get big enough to ride.
The French were weakened by WWI, but had rebuilt quite a bit. The German army had taken heavy damage from the invasion of Poland and other battles. Hitler's top military commanders told him they couldn't invade Belgium and France until they had about two years to rebuild their strength. By the numbers, the two sides were roughly matched in the Battle of France:
Germany: 141 divisions
7,378 guns
2,445 tanks
5,638 aircraft
3,350,000 troops
Allies: 144 divisions
13,974 guns
3,383â"4,071 French tanks
2,935 aircraft
3,300,000 troops
The French expected a German assault would be much slower, with Belgian resistance giving the French time to prepare before the German army could advance through Belgium to France. In fact, the Luftwaffe were able to defeat Belgium very quickly, so things were not going the way French leaders expected when Germany was suddenly near their border. Since things weren't going according to plan, there was confusion and disorder in the French military in the first few days. Some French commanders and soldiers fought the best they could, without much national leadership.
Rather than taking charge and getting a new plan organized and in action, two days after the Germans attacked French prime minister Paul Reynaud called Winston Churchill and said "we have been defeated". The Germans had barely entered France when Reynaud gave up. Shortly afterward, the French leadership fled the country. After the leadership fled, the individual military units didn't (couldn't?) mount an effective defense acting separately.
The French people as a culture may not necessarily be cowards, but certainly Prime Minister Reynaud and other leaders behaved very cowardly and ineffectively.
In contrast, even after France was in fact occupied by the Nazis, Charles De Gaul refused to give up, urging resistance by individual French people within the occupied territory and organizing units of French people from outside France to join the allies in a campaign to liberate France from the Germans. Had de Gaulle been Prime Minister rather than Reynaud, the history of WW2 might have been very different, and the French might have a very different reputation today.
Not really.
They can come in all colors, as long they follow the same book that tell em to remove all the rest.
Uh... no...that came out 17 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Tremors 6 came out a few few weeks ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So the next movie will be Tremors 7.
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
Hey! Look! Another liberal that's too dumb to understand that skin color and culture aren't the same thing. Poor, dumb liberals. Worst racists there are.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yes, and we should be tolerant of their intolerance, because otherwise we would be intolerant and that would be bad since we're white.
I, for one, welcome our new intolerant overlords.
Alas, the people who complain the most about other cultures tend to have the least of it on their own. Many of them don't even read novels. It's a sad truth that you can see that everywhere.
In contrast to that, the people who actually produce and advance culture, who write books and poems, who compose music, create fine arts, and make movies have almost without exception always been international cosmopolitans. Many of them have lived in different countries during their life, and the vast majority are very tolerant. Goethe's travel diaries are a good example of that attitude, for instance, and since we're talking about France it is also worth mentioning that Alexandre Dumas was the son of a French nobleman and a black slave from Haiti.
The moral of the story is that before even starting to think about complaining about other people's cultures, you should make damn sure that you have some of your own first.
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)
It's them Musworms :-D
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The French refused to kowtow to the USA after WWII. While the British agreed to major concessions, including freeing it's colonies, the French did not. In fact, the USA got dragged into VietNam by de Gaulle's threat to ally with the Soviet Union if we didn't back them up in their attempt to re-acquire French Indochina.
Have gnu, will travel.
and the French might have a very different reputation today.
That reputation only exists in the USA. And it was popularized after the French refused to invade Iraq. Something the USA now acknowledges as a big mistake (waste of money, no WMD found).
it illustrates very well how irrelevant cultural differences are
Right. Because our culture now generally tolerates things like, say, being gay. Whereas other cultures cheer when gay people are thrown from rooftops. I'm sure, as you headed through the air to your death, you'd probably have some different thoughts about how irrelevant it is that a particular culture holds that you should die because of your sexual preferences.
Gotta love progressive moral relativism. More than happy to let other people die as long as they can use "not being judgey" as a crutch for their own hypocritical politics.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
that french reputation existed before before US invaded Iraq. And was also quite popular in UK, not just the US.
But yes, the leadership of France did create the stigma, not the front linemen.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The German army had taken heavy damage from the invasion of Poland
No they/we did not. Poland attacked the german tanks with cavalry and lances.
I don't know if they had a single tank or fight ready plane (as in a plane with weapons and not only scout plane).
The Germans had barely entered France when Reynaud gave up.
That is nonsense.
In contrast, even after France was in fact occupied by the Nazis,
Only north France was occupied. South France was under reign by the Vichy Government. They collaborated with Germany in some way.
and the French might have a very different reputation today. ...
In the US
No one in Europe, and the least the French, care what reputation France has in the US.
France is the center of Europe, cultural, in spirit, educational, and most certainly in food and wine. And besides the idiotic UK who are leaving, they have the finest armed forces in Europe. They have a superb reputation. Not at last due to 'la Resistance'. However they could have handled Vietnam and the rest of Indochina better and not drop nukes in north Africa.
De Gaulle was an asshole, he lost Algeria which probably would now be a kind of "part of France", and most certainly part of the EU. Why? Because he did not want to give them voting rights!
Like the US messed up Asia, and together with the Brits, the middle east, he messed up north Africa. Gaddafi in Lybia probably hat never made anything interesting if De Gaulle.
If de Gaulle had not turned out into a power hungry semi dictator, the world would be a different place.
But alas, that has nothing to do with the French's reputation in the rest of Europe.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Same here in Germany, we have about 60 packs. Some estimate it is about 600 animals in total.
Sad is, one pack killed a whole herd of sheep a few weeks ago. Of course the farmers get refunded, but it is ofc annoying and not good for the project.
Luckily the lynx are more quiet :D We have about 100 in Germany, but some idiots try to poisson them or even hunt them.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.