White worm ? Reminder )
June 20, 2011 10:20 PM
Sir,
Thanks a lot for the painstaking efforts for keeping the site authentic.
Here is another one from my place, Kerala India.
This is a white earthworm(?) found near a paddy field in murky waters. It measured almost 32 cm and the girth would be 2 cm.
what would be this ?
Warm regards
Ibrahim TMC
Kasargod- Kerala
Dear Ibrahim,
We really love your photo using the umbrella to cast a shadow and eliminate glare. We have no idea what this White Worm is and we will need to do some research. We can’t help but to wonder if it spends its life in dark places so it doesn’t need pigmentation. Our sense of the macabre just kicked in and we can’t help but to wonder if this might be some human parasite.
We just had this incredible desire to read Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm, and it seems the entire text is available online. We like this larger type version even better, though we would much rather read the book.
Dear Daniel Sir,
Your efforts were painstaking to identify the white worm.
My friend from the Zoological Survey of India, Calicut is quite sure that it is an earthworm. They call it Dravida Nilamburiansis. Further he informed me that it would measure up to a meter in length.Earlier thought it was endemic to place called Nilambur, in Kerala India.
Warm regards,
Ibrahim TMC
It would appear that the white worm you have seen is spoken about in the ancient text of a greek historian “Philostratus” The Life History of Apollonius, The worm is described in Book 3 chapter 1, “There is also a creature in this river which resembles a white worm. By melting down they make an oil, and from this oil, it appears, there is given off a flame such that nothing but glass can contain it. And this creature may be caught by the king alone, who utilizes it for the capture of cities; for as soon as the fat in question touches the battlements, a fire is kindled which defies all the ordinary means devised by men against combustibles.”
It is interesting reading, as there is much to be told of India within it.
Thank you for this fascinating historical citation.