Question

What is the largest worm?

Answer 1

Hint: This worm belongs to the phylum Annelida under class Clitellata. This worm was first discovered in South Africa in 1967 on a road between Alice and King William’s town. Annelids are a group of ring-shaped and segmented worms. It is a large phylum, comprising about 22000 extant species including ringworms, earthworms, and leeches.

Complete answer:
Microchaetus rappi, the African Giant Earthworm, a large earthworm in the Microchaetidae family, the largest of the segmented worms. It averages about 1.4 m (4.5 ft) in length, but can reach a length of as much as 6.7 m (22 ft) and weigh over 1.5 Kgs. The worm imparts a dark greenish coloration which gets darkened to a duller green as one moves down the body.
This earthworm is said to have a life cycle whole beneath the soil, i.e., is born and stays in under the soil and comes out on the surface only once, and probably never goes back. Within 6 hours of its coming out into the soil and being exposed to the sun, it dies.

Note:
Microchaetus rappi was first described in 1849 by Dr. Rapp as Lumbricus microchaetus with an associated proposal for a new genus named “Microchaetus”. Microchaetus was also presented as a possible new genus at the time. The site in which it was originally documented was labelled as ‘Cape’, a southern region in South Africa. Due to a variety of nomenclatural problems, taxonomic problems have always been there since the day this species was discovered.