Wiggle Room: annelid exhibits in zoos and aquariums

[DavidBrown]

Worms fascinate many of us when we are kids, but then I think most people forget about them unless it rains and there are drowned earthworms all over the sidewalk that you have to avoid stepping on.

The Class Annelida is a passel of fascinating biological diversity.

Earthworms provide essential ecosystem services by tilling the soil, breaking it up and distributing nutrients. Polychaete worms have an amazing diversity of body shapes and ecological lifestyles. Leeches have important medical value to humans and are immensely irritating to tourists in Asian rain forests that forget their leech proof socks.

Are there any great zoo or aquarium exhibits that highlight earthworms or polychaetes or leeches?

I've read recently that there are meter long earthworms in New Zealand. Are there any of these guys in zoos?

 

[Chlidonias]

I've read recently that there are meter long earthworms in New Zealand. Are there any of these guys in zoos?

there are giant earthworms in several parts of the world. I think Australia has the longest species. There's a place in Australia that displays them (I think; it might not actually have live ones?) and the building is in the shape of a giant earthworm.

New Zealand still wins though because our giant earthworms are bioluminescent

 

[Chlidonias]

can't forget Barry the four-foot-long sea worm at the UK's Blue Reef Aquarium! Here's an article about him, but he also featured on Zoochat in the past: Blue Reef Aquarium - the ultimate undersea family day out - Newquay, Southsea in Portsmouth and Tynemouth (Newcastle Upon Tyne)

 

[chrisbarela]

I'm working on another project that would potentially showcase these amazing animals. The trick is HOW? There's always the thin tank (like the ant farm style). I've been thinking that the best way to showcase "hard to view" animals is to have a docent bring them out for the public in a shallow tray.

 

[Zoovolunteer]

Bristol has a medicinal leech display, but it is a little out of date now - I would like to see one updated to showcase the use of leeches in modern medicine as well.

 

[DavidBrown]

I'm working on another project that would potentially showcase these amazing animals. The trick is HOW? There's always the thin tank (like the ant farm style). I've been thinking that the best way to showcase "hard to view" animals is to have a docent bring them out for the public in a shallow tray.

I was thinking about the thin tank. I wonder if it would be possible to create an actual Wiggle Room with walls that are actually composed of ant farm-style tanks.

A wall-sized tank with a soil profile where you could watch earthworms and maybe other fossorial animals like termites or an ant colony might be very immersive and awesome.

I wonder how big you could practically build one so that it could actually be maintained?

One of the most amazing zoological displays that I have seen is the wall of 300 dire wolf skulls at the Page Museum at the La Brea tarpits. I've often wondered if the same basic technique of display could be used for something like a soil profile and the animals that live underground.

 

[DavidBrown]

It looks like there is a Wildlife Wonderland Giant Earthworm Museum in Victoria, Australia that claims to have live giant earthworms on display.
CAN - Collections Australia Network - Wildlife Wonderlands Giant Earthworm Museum

Has anybody been to this place?

 

[reduakari]

I was thinking about the thin tank. I wonder if it would be possible to create an actual Wiggle Room with walls that are actually composed of ant farm-style tanks.

A wall-sized tank with a soil profile where you could watch earthworms and maybe other fossorial animals like termites or an ant colony might be very immersive and awesome.

I wonder how big you could practically build one so that it could actually be maintained?

One of the most amazing zoological displays that I have seen is the wall of 300 dire wolf skulls at the Page Museum at the La Brea tarpits. I've often wondered if the same basic technique of display could be used for something like a soil profile and the animals that live underground.

Monterey Bay Aquarium has a fantastic exhibit of "Fat Innkeeper Worms" that uses this principle, but in an aquatic setting: a flat tank with a sandy substrate profile burrow system and glass front. The worms are delightfully gross as they pulsate in plain view in their burrows.

 

[zooboy28]

I came across this article today, which describes a 75cm giant earthworm found at Ti Point Reptile Park, New Zealand. The park owner said he would keep it for the day (in a bucket of soil) and release it that night, to see if it would display its bioluminescent-ness.

Story & Photos here: The 75cm giant worm that turns ...up - National - NZ Herald News

The article is surprisingly good actually, it includes the scientific name and quite a few details on the earthworm too, and isn't a "yuck, gross bug" story as is normal.

No one knows how large they can grow - but giant, blind, glow-in-the-dark earthworms are wriggling a couple of metres beneath the surface around Auckland.

This 75cm-long specimen was a surprise discovery for the owner of the Ti Point Reptile Park in Warkworth, who came across the worm on his morning rounds of the grounds.

"It was just lying on the ground alongside the track in the bush, for some reason it had come out of its burrow," Ivan Borich said.

Specimens of Spenceriella gigantea are rarely seen live above ground.

In 40 years running the park, Mr Borich had never seen one.

"We've always known about them. In all these years we'd always liked to have seen one, but when they're that long and the clay ground's that hard it'd be impossible to get one out in one piece."

Entomologist Ruud Kleinpaste said that was because the worms were safe in the earth and knew it would be dangerous to venture out.

"If you come above the ground and you are 1.4 metres and, say, an inch or an inch and a half thick, you are a serious breakfast. And secondly, you can't crawl away quickly, you're not a snake.

The fastest you can move is in your tunnels below the ground."

But this week's torrential rain would have driven this specimen out of its tunnels.

"When it rains really hard, their burrows can run full of water ... they don't want to drown, they don't have gills, they need oxygen to run through their skin. Also with downpours, you get slips which crush their tunnels," Mr Kleinpaste said.

These giant worms were much more common than people realised, he said.

This week's discovery was a star at the Reptile Park yesterday, and staff were keeping it in a bucket of soil.

Mr Borich said they wanted to hold onto it until nightfall so they could see whether it glowed in the dark before setting it free.

Mr Kleinpaste said it was a little-known fact that earthworms could glow.

"It's been reported that we have native earthworms that are fluorescent - why that would be I have no idea, because these things don't even have eyes."

SPENCERIELLA GIGANTEA
* Also known as North Auckland worm.
* Thought to be New Zealand's largest.
* No one knows how long it can grow.
* Can glow in the dark.
* Burrows through the earth in a network of tunnels.
* Has twice as many hairs as normal earthworms and feels "unshaven".