Are you ever seen hammer headed worm? Do you know how it looks? You know what they eat? Let's know about this worm.
Hammer headed worm is the long, thin black looking worm with a distinctive hammer head (half-moon shaped), slithering and slimming. Hammerhead worms are flatworms and can grow to be quite large, up to 50 centimetres in length, in fact. They are native to Asia. They are nocturnal, so it is easiest to find them at night, but they are commonly seen in the morning too. They are most often found on the top of soil like in a garden or on one’s lawn, after it has rained. This scary worm comes out in rainy season likes an Earthworms. They need moist environment for survive that's why they live in soil and therefore they only seen in rainy season.
Hammer headed worms are not harmful for humans nor for household pests, but they are very harmful for friends of farmers means Earthworms. Hammer headed worms only feeds on earthworms. They follow an Earthworms tails to capture them and hold victim, secrete sticky secretions to prevent escape of earthworm. It will push its pharynx out of its mouth and then secrete enzymes on the worm. The enzymes will dissolve the earthworm’s body, and once this occurs, the hammerhead worm sucks the liquefied tissue into its body. Because the earthworm is dissolved before being consumed by hammer headed worm. The hammerhead worm’s digestion process largely occurs outside of its body. Hammerhead worms are quite pervasive, and in some places problematically so. Several are considered invasive species and they are capable of depleting
earthworm populations. Actually absence of hammer headed worm directly proportional to decreasing population of earthworms.
-Krushnat Gunjawate
(College of Forestry, Dapoli)
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