Creepy Worms Invade Maine

The hammerhead worm was first spotted in southern and central Maine last fall. It’s a flatworm 8- to 15-inches long with a distinctive hammer or shovel-shaped head.

They like it here. Noted the Bangor Daily News: “A toxic, predatory invasive worm capable of unlimited self-cloning has arrived in Maine.”

Even more impressively: The hammerhead worm does not have a respiratory or circulatory system, nor does it have a skeleton. According to the News, “it may or may not have eyes. What it does have is a single opening on its head that serves as both its mouth and its anus.”

Of course it gets worse. The hammerhead is the only land invertebrate we know of that produces the same toxin found in the very lethal pufferfish, so wash your hands if you have the misfortune of touching one. Like all flatworms, it reproduces asexually (because who would want to have sex with this thing?). Basically it leaves a piece of itself somewhere and that piece grows into another full blown worm.
The thing is native to southeast Asia and prefers its climate hot and humid, and so has established colonies in the South. It probably hitched a ride to the Northeast in mulch and soil and has been found in greenhouses in New York and Massachusetts, and now Maine.
Liz Baker of Lewiston spotted one of these monsters slithering up her foundation last fall. “I was fascinated,” said Baker. “Totally creepy and strange but I love learning about different species [and] I had never seen anything like it.” She captured it (on video): youtube.com/watch?v=NVtWC_HgyKQ.

There is one silver lining to this horrorshow. The hammerhead apparently preys on another invasive, the Alabama jumping worm, which can pop up out of the ground like a snake and deplete the soil of nutrients.