The Hammerhead Worm(texasmonthly.com)
texasmonthly.com
The Hammerhead Worm
https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/meet-nightmare-hammerhead-worm/
111 comments
Anyone else want to rally at the State Capitol? ;)
I remember onetime around Oklahoma, my grandpa was driving a fully-loaded '94 Maxima with my grandma, aunt, mom, and myself. He then proceeded to drive slowly through a tarantula migration where the entire road was covered with large, dark round, shapes as far as they eye could see in every direction moving northwest. Grandma, who had terrible vision, flung the rear door open and leaned out parallel to the ground like a cartoon character to get a better look. I swear she was about to fall out.
PS: Neovim is the correct answer. Kill regular Vi with fire and nuke VS Code from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Emacs is for people trying to turn people and the entire world into LISP. Nothing wrong with that, but keep your religion out of my beliefs.
I remember onetime around Oklahoma, my grandpa was driving a fully-loaded '94 Maxima with my grandma, aunt, mom, and myself. He then proceeded to drive slowly through a tarantula migration where the entire road was covered with large, dark round, shapes as far as they eye could see in every direction moving northwest. Grandma, who had terrible vision, flung the rear door open and leaned out parallel to the ground like a cartoon character to get a better look. I swear she was about to fall out.
PS: Neovim is the correct answer. Kill regular Vi with fire and nuke VS Code from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Emacs is for people trying to turn people and the entire world into LISP. Nothing wrong with that, but keep your religion out of my beliefs.
Does neovim let me select a term and quick-list declarations, the definition, & references across the codebase? Step-by-step debug with gdb integration? Otherwise I have to clutch my VS Code.
I'm not shit flinging. Always wanted to be a 1337 FOSSy cli-only hackerman until I started trying to contribute to a C codebase with a thousand files of thousands of lines of code. Hung my head in shame and installed VS Code.
I'm not shit flinging. Always wanted to be a 1337 FOSSy cli-only hackerman until I started trying to contribute to a C codebase with a thousand files of thousands of lines of code. Hung my head in shame and installed VS Code.
Yes, Neovim natively supports LSP (Which, interestingly we have thanks to VSCode. It binds to the same thing that VSCode binds to. So you have feature parity). [0]
And anything related to debugging, we have nvim-dap. (Which AGAIN we have the DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol) thanks to VSCode) [1]
[0] - https://neovim.io/doc/user/lsp.html [1] - https://github.com/mfussenegger/nvim-dap
And anything related to debugging, we have nvim-dap. (Which AGAIN we have the DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol) thanks to VSCode) [1]
[0] - https://neovim.io/doc/user/lsp.html [1] - https://github.com/mfussenegger/nvim-dap
Thank you!
I actually find neovim to work better than VSCode when dealing with large codebases. Telescope [1] based fuzzy searching makes it easy to find stuff in a codebase and harpoon [2] can then be used to short list some important files and quickly navigate to them. There's definitely a bit of a learning curve and setting up your own keybindings before you feel like you're used to it.
[1] https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim [2] https://github.com/ThePrimeagen/harpoon
[1] https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim [2] https://github.com/ThePrimeagen/harpoon
Thank you!
You had me at “tarantula migration“
Nightmare fuel ensues. The only saving grace is tarantulas are somewhat docile and aren't aggressive or dangerous. They can attack lungs and skin with their defense mechanism if they feel threatened.
Black widow's are pretty chill, but they're difficult to spot and hide in things.
Brown recluses OTOH are demons.
In the world, the horrific are the huntsman spiders of Australia. Just search Youtube for these monsters. I'd find some other place to live with normal arachnids.
Black widow's are pretty chill, but they're difficult to spot and hide in things.
Brown recluses OTOH are demons.
In the world, the horrific are the huntsman spiders of Australia. Just search Youtube for these monsters. I'd find some other place to live with normal arachnids.
I don’t mind spiders, and I actually played with tarantulas regularly as a kid. The Hunstsman spider is a whole different ball game. The whole “I can jump at your face from 3 feet away and I’m the size of a toilet seat“ thing is beyond the pale.
I have to leave this thread
Everyone seems to be pretty ok with those guys just kinda chillin around them. I think the weather would be higher on my list of things to be afraid of in Australia
It must be a primal, instinctual, fear from when our mouse-sized mammal ancestors were hunted by those things at night.
I'll never unsee clock spider.
Spent a week working on an organic farm in West Virginia in my teens. One of the greenhouses had a black widow invasion. There were probably 5-10 per cubic meter. One of my jobs was to clear them out with some sort of dessicant spray that caused them to shrivel up so we could till and plant tomatoes.
Had phantom black widows on me for days. But they were pretty docile.
Had phantom black widows on me for days. But they were pretty docile.
I've never had a runin with a black widow I didn't expect. Just look at where you put your fingers in places that are dark during the day.
Brown widows are a pain in my rear. Unlike black widows, who outside will hide in holes and places you general don't access, brown widows will hide in places you do - places that aren't pitch black during the day like outdoor toys, and under chairs and tables.
Brown widows are a pain in my rear. Unlike black widows, who outside will hide in holes and places you general don't access, brown widows will hide in places you do - places that aren't pitch black during the day like outdoor toys, and under chairs and tables.
All editors other than VS Code are for people whose favorite thing to use an editor for is making editor plugins
I use lisp, but not emacs. Keep your editor out of my religion.
I use Emacs but don’t use Lisp. Sometimes I use vim and experimenting with neovim. The editor wars are incredibly frustrating and boring, don’t start one.
Yes, we won't start it, we'll end it!
Hell to the yes!
kill regular vi, or regular vim?
I think humanity as a whole can only really start focusing on the real problems once we settle on the Emacs vs neovim debate. It's all about setting the right priorities, right?
I don’t think anyone cares about emacs vs vim anymore. (Because that would require caring about emacs even a little bit). It is now VSCode vs neovim and it seems like a tough fight.
I'm on the verge of converting. I'm sick of vscode using 4-6 CPU cores at 100% when I'm not doing anything.
Do you think drawing a cursor is free ? Think again. /s
I'm conceited enough that lately I've been thinking, "maybe I should just write a text editor. It can't be that hard."
I tried a new text editor today that's written in rust. I downloaded the tar.gz and it just had a single executable binary in it It doesn't feel any more responsive than vscode, but at least its rust extension seems to work. I wrote like 20 lines of rust without any borrow checker errors so it was a good day?
Back when I worked on space ships, I used gedit and grep. That was before gedit's UI got butchered. Those were the good old days I guess.
I tried a new text editor today that's written in rust. I downloaded the tar.gz and it just had a single executable binary in it It doesn't feel any more responsive than vscode, but at least its rust extension seems to work. I wrote like 20 lines of rust without any borrow checker errors so it was a good day?
Back when I worked on space ships, I used gedit and grep. That was before gedit's UI got butchered. Those were the good old days I guess.
Clearly! Emacs has won but the fight for the second place is fierce.
Only a few people get it. You are in the vanguard, my
friend
Why not nano?
I grew up in Texas, and thought the wildlife was the most hostile in the US. We had the big mosquitos, nasty bugs, and predators all in our neighborhood...
Then I moved to Florida.
Then I moved to Florida.
the one thing worse than big mosquitoes: small mosquitoes
More accurately, 700 gazillion mosquitos of all sizes, and 2 gazillion bug predators trying to eat them, in a hazy cloud obscuring the alligator chilling in your backyard.
> answer: neovim
Hammerhead worms: Attack!
Hammerhead worms: Attack!
[deleted]
WBUR did an interesting show about hammerhead worms and other invasives. I'm glad there are people playing attention closely enough to notice such things. Lately I've been trying to learn the fungi and slime molds growing in various places around my yard. Maybe with time I'll be able to notice new species coming in.
https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2023/01/27/wormwars
"When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom.
Until, that is, state experts clue her into the "real threat"; a different creepy crawly wriggling towards The Pine Tree State's gardens and precious forests, and fast.
In an attempt to find out more about this real threat, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Nora Saks tunnel down a wormhole, encountering a long history of xenophobic rhetoric about so-called invasive species, and some hard truths about the field of invasion biology itself. Eventually, they wind up at a community garden in Bangor, Maine, where the worm wars are playing out in real time."
"When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom.
Until, that is, state experts clue her into the "real threat"; a different creepy crawly wriggling towards The Pine Tree State's gardens and precious forests, and fast.
In an attempt to find out more about this real threat, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Nora Saks tunnel down a wormhole, encountering a long history of xenophobic rhetoric about so-called invasive species, and some hard truths about the field of invasion biology itself. Eventually, they wind up at a community garden in Bangor, Maine, where the worm wars are playing out in real time."
‘Wormhole’ nice.
Fun fact, most earthworms in North America are invasive. In entire large regions of the country in which we think of earthworms as being common, they mostly didn't exist until European colonization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_A...
I think it's a direct consequence of cats killing all the early birds. My understanding is that they were the ones who got the worm.
I have seen one of these in predating action. It just got hold of a small snail and it was like a scene from a horror movie. It literally devoured that snail with a widening jaw in a few seconds with a very very vicious and relentless attack. Really stuff of nightmares.
The linked paper towards the end is pretty interesting: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ddi.13489 (open access)
Figures 3 and 4 show the estimated increase in range through the 2070s with continuing climate change. It looks like these nice little neurotoxin-secreting worms will become more widespread, which sounds great.
Figures 3 and 4 show the estimated increase in range through the 2070s with continuing climate change. It looks like these nice little neurotoxin-secreting worms will become more widespread, which sounds great.
Great
honest question: does public awareness of their invasiveness have any chance of making a difference? does the salt-and-vinegar thing at all meaningfully reduce their population? i have trouble imagining it but would love to hear of evidence to the contrary.
The province of Alberta in Canada is famously rat free. They stopped the spreading westward wave of rats in the 1950s and have maintained this status.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/alberta-rat-free
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/alberta-rat-ca...
https://www.alberta.ca/albertas-rat-control-program.aspx
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/alberta-rat-free
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/alberta-rat-ca...
https://www.alberta.ca/albertas-rat-control-program.aspx
The salt and vinegar thing annoyed me. If you're putting the worm in a sealed zip lock bag, isn't it going to die anyway, eventually? Salt and vinegar just seems to be gilding the lily.
No and no. It is possible to stop invasive species, but it requires catching them before they have spread widely, or that they are restricted to a small area (like rats on Midway Atoll). Once an invasive species has spread widely, there is very little that can be done. You can extirpate them in a small area, but due to the characteristics that make them invasive, it’s virtually impossible to completely get rid of them.
> tetrodotoxin
Well that's a new wrinkle. Wonder what it does to birds.
Well that's a new wrinkle. Wonder what it does to birds.
Maybe the vinegaroons (https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/do-not-fear-the-land-lob...) can go after the hammerheads.
I remember finding one of those at our house in Orange County, California, in the mid-80's. I was a teen, and it really grossed me out. Apparently, They've been a problem for quite a while.
I found a couple in my (earth)worm bin a couple years ago (also in the OC). That might be a good way to bait them, actually.
We have a similar invasive worm in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe: New Zealand Flatworm and Australian Flatworm.
I've lost count of the number of NZ flatworms that I've killed in salty water over the past few months. I'm losing hope of removing them from our small market garden. There are far fewer earthworms in the patches the flatworm flourished before I found them.
I am very interested how organic growers in NZ deal with them. If they're a problem in their native regions.
I am very interested how organic growers in NZ deal with them. If they're a problem in their native regions.
You'd think chopping it into several pieces would do it, even if just two doesn't. Or are they like sea stars where tiny bits of them can fully regenerate?
There must be a limit. Like: Will it blend?
The ability of starfish to regenerate varies from species to species. I’m not sure that any have the ability to regenerate from a tiny bit (well, depends on the definition of tiny of course).
Their mouths are in the center of their body, so if that part is destroyed anything that is going to regenerate will have to deal with the inability to eat while doing so, which is problematic!
Their mouths are in the center of their body, so if that part is destroyed anything that is going to regenerate will have to deal with the inability to eat while doing so, which is problematic!
I don't know about this particular species, but some planaria can be split into more than one piece and regenerate. A record is over 60 from what I recall from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-9rLlFgcm0
Hammerhead BBQ time! This is Texas' answer to Japan's fugu fish cuisine!
"zip the bag and throw it away" may not be the best advice for killing said entity.
Also: all the plastic pollution.
Interestingly, theyre a threat because they eat earthworms, which are not native to north america and were imported from Europe.
Other examples of nativized species like this are dandelions and trout.
Other examples of nativized species like this are dandelions and trout.
These things are called pollution bugs in Japan. The first time I came across one I had no idea what it was. The way they move flapping their wing head is fascinating.
These things hitchhike in soil (flowerpots etc.). Soil solarization strategies might help, from the simplest (placing black plastic sheeting over recently turned-over soil on hot days) to building a black-plastic lined box with a clear plexiglass cover for smaller volumes. There are a lot of how-to YT videos etc.
At least it's not a computer worm that takes advantage of a freshly discovered Hammerhead vulnerability.
> It's (sic) mouth is located in the underside of the middle of the body (not the head!).
Eerie...
Eerie...
Nice, reminds me of the eating habits of some leeches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fGGz6d3vC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fGGz6d3vC4
I haven't seen any near me in the Carolinas. But I'm going to stock up on vinegar and salt just in case.
They've been in the Triangle area of NC for over a decade now. Can confirm that salt wears them out more or less instantly.
I found an 8-10 inch one in a wooded, non-garden area in a central NC backyard a couple years ago. Definitely here.
I've seen many on the campus of Elon University.
We have these in our yard in SC.
The last thing I want in an article about HammerHead Worms is ads such as these on the page...
https://i.imgur.com/QvMMfTV.png
https://i.imgur.com/QvMMfTV.png
Come on, it's Texas Monthly.
<quote>When you spot one, put it in a Ziploc bag—while protecting your hand with a napkin or gloves—and add vinegar or salt.</quote>
Why the need for protection? Does it bite?
Why the need for protection? Does it bite?
This is discussed in detail in the actual article.
It excretes the same neurotoxin as puffer fish
Ahhhh- so much to fear. What’s next, a sharknado perhaps?
Action must be taken.