Look at this worm. Behold it! Is it not the most spectacular worm you have ever seen?
If you’re a loyal reader of this space, you saw this exact worm a week or so ago, in my post about Japanese botanist Tomitaro Makino and some of the plants he grew up around.
That was the first time I’d seen one of those worms, as far as I remember, and it was a shock. Who knew that a worm could be so cool?
I mean, Slimey the Worm is cool, obviously, and Lowly Worm, but I don’t remember ever being this surprised and delighted by a real live worm in the wild before.
What made it so surprising and delightful? For one thing, it was huge. More than a foot long, and at least as big around as my pinky finger. It was so big that I actually had to take a moment to analyze its movement and confirm that no, it was definitely not a snake. No slithering. It was lengthening and contracting itself, the way worms do. Because it’s a worm.
The other surprising and delightful thing was its color – blue-gray and iridescent. Iridescent! A worm! So it looked remarkably like the familiar earthworms at home – but huge and beautiful. No offense to the little pink ones, but this was way prettier.
Its environment, of course, was also delightful – a rock covered with moss. I watched as it waved its head around to investigate its surroundings and decide which way to go.
(A brief perusal of the internet suggests that it may be a Metaphire sieboldi and I’d love to get that confirmed by any earthworm experts in the house.)
They seem to not be too unusual, because I’ve seen a few more since. Most recently, on Saturday morning. I was walking up a winding road to a temple in Imabari, Japan. It was only in the mid-60s, but it was sunny and it was a steep road and I’m still mentally in winter, so it felt pretty hot.
As I was passing through a much appreciated patch of shade, I saw a giant blue friend on some leaves at the edge of a pavement, squidging its way toward the center. It’s not a very busy road but cars do use it to get to and from the temple and it didn’t seem like a safe place for a worm, so I used the tip of my new 700-yen umbrella to nudge it back onto the shoulder and try to get it pointed in another direction. (It didn’t seem to appreciate this.)
I hope it survived to shine another day.
Photo: Helen Fields, obviously
