Stop writing Amynthas spp. and get the species properly identified. If you do not know what species you have, you should not even be sure that it is an Amynthas. Asian invasive earthworms are not that much harder to identify than the common European species. You just need a different set of “tools” and be willing to be an “occasional earthworm dissector”. Here is something to get you started. [PDF] |
Some people call them Asian jumping worms, or Alabama jumpers. However, not all Amynthas jump, and to make things worse, not all jumping Asian species in the US are Amynthas. Confused? Here is all the medicine you will need: an illustrated key to species of Amynthas, Metaphire, Pithemera, and Polypheretima in North America, a paper published in Zootaxa by Chih-Han Chang, Bruce A. Snyder, and Katalin Szlavecz, covering all 16 species with 23 figures. [Link] |
Three pheretimoid species, Amynthas agrestis, A. tokioensis, and Metaphire hilgendorfi, are rapidly spreading in temperate forests in the US. They were originally reported in Midwest and East Coast states, but were confirmed in multiple locations in Oregon in 2016. These three species frequently co-occur in the field and are relative hard to distinguish from each other. Having trouble identifying which species you have? Here is something that may help. [PDF] |