Revolutionary new food item! :D

[Zephyr]

And the ID has been given:
Amynthas agrestis


Which is a highly "aggressive" Asian worm commonly used for bait.

[Zephyr]

I find it VERY odd how garters have adapted to eat a food found on most every other continent that's not there own.
Could it be that the introduction of the worm to US soil has been a driving force in garter population expansion? :O

[infernalis]

oddly, most studies focus on dwindling populations, instead of growth....

[Zephyr]

oddly, most studies focus on dwindling populations, instead of growth....

Well of course there are other causes... I'm going to be generic and say pollution and loss of habitat, but the big killer is ignorance.

[Garter_Gertie]

You know, one o'the worms I got for P&J today, dropped its [I'm guessing] tail. I've never had that happen before. The 'tail' end went BONKERS.

There are native North American worms, just not in areas that were heavily glatiated like up here.

[Zephyr]

I still find it interesting that a species like Butler's or dekay's has adapted to the new food items though. Perhaps one of the only reasons for the development of the butler's as a species was because of the invasive worms! :O

[KITKAT]

I still find it interesting that a species like Butler's or dekay's has adapted to the new food items though. Perhaps one of the only reasons for the development of the butler's as a species was because of the invasive worms! :O

More and more, we have worms and not frogs. The reduction in frog populations is very noticeable in my area. Perhaps they gradually switched from frogs to worms?

[KITKAT]

Brought inadvertently to the United States more than a century ago in plants imported from Japan, the earthworms are common in areas where people live, including Clarke County.
But now they're moving into wild forests like the Smokies, and scientists fear the voracious worms could disrupt the forests' ecological balance from the bottom up, consuming the leaf layer of soil that's a key part of the forest life cycle.
Just how much risk they pose isn't clear, Callaham said.
They don't look much different than other earthworms - 5 or 6 inches long, a little fatter than most.
But in maple forests in Minnesota where the worms have taken up residence, the leaf litter - decaying leaves and other plant material - has disappeared where the worms have invaded, Callaham said.
Layers of leaf litter that took 100 years to build up have disappeared in months, along with big and little creatures that lived in the litter.
Some plant species also seem to be declining in the worms' wake, and some scientists fear that could be the first evidence of bigger changes the worms are wreaking on the maple forests, Callaham said.

Read the entire article:

OnlineAthens.com | News | Invasive Asian earthworms hooked on destruction 11/05/07

[Zephyr]

That's alot easier for me. :P
Although I can't quite find records saying they even eat/ate frogs. The article I read says they're basically neotenic radix.

[Garter_Gertie]

What about Gertie? She's only been eating worms for 300 years or less. Prior to Post Contact, there were no earth worms in MN at all, but for that aquatic one.

Opertunistic, as it's been said of garters. She's not develope in 300 years or so because of worms. Garters have been here forever, as well as north in Canada.

And Dekays? Like where's their usual, normal basic habitat? Maybe unglaciated and they've eaten worms all along? And just 'went over' to the non-native North American species of worms because they were handy?