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Hammerhead worms pose growing threat to gardens
These tiny, predatory cannibals go after the common creatures that help plant life flourish.
Author: JESSICA DAMIANO (Associated Press)
Published: 8:53 AM CDT August 20, 2024
Updated: 1:01 PM CDT August 20, 2024
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As its name would imply, the narrow, snakelike flatworm has a head built like that of a hammerhead shark. And it’s hardly a newcomer, believed to have hitched a ride to the U.S. from Southeast Asia with a shipment of plants around 1900.
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Although they are ravenous earthworm hunters, hammerheads are coated in the same paralytic neurotoxin present in pufferfish, which keeps birds and other insects from preying on them... This gives them a decisive advantage in the food chain.
That chemical coating is toxic to pets and would likely irritate your skin if you were to pick up a worm. To add insult to injury, their bodies contain parasitic nematodes, tiny roundworms that feed on plants and can parasitize humans, animals and beneficial insects.
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The slithering pests love heat and humidity, so they initially made their homes in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
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Preferring to hide under leaf litter, shrubs, rocks and logs, the worms can go largely unnoticed. But if you spot one, don’t squash or cut it (that would just make more). The only way to kill hammerhead worms is to pour salt or vinegar on them.
