Apalachicola's Worm Grunting Mole People

October 14, 2008

Have you ever seen a mole up close?

(Credit for all pics: Ken Catania)

My neighbor has a mole and gopher blasting kit of some sort. He sets off "bombs" underground containing goodness knows what toxic stuff. This process seems to give him great personal satisfaction. You can almost hear a maniacal chuckle preceding the bomb explosions. The burrowing critters, on the other hand, have all wisely moved to other properties, as evidenced by the countless holes now in my garden. But moles help to keep insect populations in check. One of their favorite foods is earthworms.

If you put moles, worms and humans together you get Apalachicola's worm grunting mole people.

According to Vanderbilt University's Exploration magazine, worm grunting involves going into a forest, driving a wooden stake into the ground and then rubbing the top of the stake with a long piece of steel called a rooping iron. This produces a bizarre grunting sound that drives earthworms out of their dirty depths and up to the surface.

The reason gets back to the favorite snack of moles. They are the arch enemy of earthworms.

Ken Catania, a Vanderbilt biologist who recently led a study on worm grunting, believes the produced noise mimics the sounds of digging moles.

"Eastern moles don't come to the surface when they are foraging, so fleeing to the surface provides the worms both immediate safety and the most efficient means for getting away from them,” says Catania, whose research was funded by a MacArthur Foundation fellowship along with an NSF CAREER Award.

Worm grunting is a boon to fishermen, as they can then gather earthworms by the bucketfuls.

 

Gary and Audrey Revell make their living following this old tradition that turns out to have some pretty solid science behind it. They're featured in the below video that shows something you don't see every day—worm gruntin' in Sopchoppy, Florida.

   

Comments

[Dee dee Johnson]

Geez Jennifer, what do you have against worms? They make their "dirty" places quite inviting to fruits and nuts. Worms have feelings too you know, although those moles are pretty handsome.

[Jen Viegas]

Nothing at all against worms, Dee dee. As you suggest, they are a gardener's best friend. But moles and gophers have their place in the ecosystem too.
The scientific jury is still out on worm feelings, since they have such a simple nervous system. (Same holds true for crustaceans.) But I'm inclined to agree with you that they indeed must have some degree of feelings, although probably not at all akin to how we experience the world.

[Joelle]

Well here we are again, Jen, talking about animal feelings.

We call our place Gopher Flats and you'd know why if you came by (and please do). Our property has changed in 22 years...the gophers are moving the house, I believe, as surely as they are moving the landscaping around. We said goodbye to the flat lawn ages ago.

When we have friends over we have signs out:
"We take no responsibility for gopher holes or sprained ankles so WATCH YOUR STEP!"

This year is particularly bad. A bumper crop, though some are most likely moles. We don't actually see them much. Just enough sightings to know what's going on.

We have opossums around sometimes, too, and even raised a baby...did you know that baby opossums are taken to wildlife rescue societies regularly even though a baby opossum is large enough to be on it's own when it falls off the mother. See a cute baby 'possu, leave it alone. It doesn't miss it's mother It's the oldest mammal in North America if I'm correct.

Nothing stops them, and they loooooooooove worms! They grasp the little earthworm carefully with fingers and opposable thumbs, curl back their lips and with a satisfying crunch and a pop, they have their favorite meal. Of course anything an opossum eats is their favorite meal. The brain case is quite small for it's size.

I thought "toad in a hole" was just a breakfast item, but we really did have toads in holes. Once I was watering a hole and out climbed a toad! They like bugs and worms also.

I want to know which of any of the above have feelings, romantic, angry, fearful or otherwise. Any ideas?

[Jen Viegas]

Great to hear from you, Joelle. "Gopher Flats"- I love it! And thank you for the kind invitation.
Also got a kick out of your description of the baby opossum eating a worm, and the toad in the hole. A cook in England must have experienced something similar before coming up with that sausage recipe. (We'll leave "spotted d---" alone...)
You might have read it already, but a good book on the subject of animal feelings is "The Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good" by Jonathon Balcombe (MacMillian, 2006). We did a story on him/the book just after it came out.
I've no doubt that non-human animals feel what we call love, anger, fear and other emotions. The real mind-blower is when we turn the analytical tables on ourselves. When we start to see that we really are primates and not disconnected from the animal kingdom. Feeling in love with someone, for example, is thought to have evolved as a result of bonding necessary for child care, so "true love" only lasts for a few years. But you can fall in and out of love with the same person over and over again. Anger is often tied to testosterone levels. Fear has a very strong genetic component too. Some birds, for example, are born feeling much more guarded and fearful than other birds. They never do as well as more risk-taking avians. Same holds true for humans, so long as the person's luck holds out. The interplay of genes, environment and moment-to-moment happenings affect our personal development, and therefore our feelings. Levels of memory, however, vary a lot between species. So your baby opossum probably felt satiated and at peace eating the worm, but then may not remember the moment much later. Hard to say, though. I like to think of your opossum all grown up and dreaming about its happy childhood and the nice people who took the time to care.

[Joelle]

Hi Jen,
Blogging on the weekend?
Isn't that like working on the weekend?

I read (somewhere, can't remember...old brain) that human evolution is slowing down, even ending, with all the new science and technology, i.e. no more survival of the fittest when we're saving everybody with antibiotics etc.

The point being made was that the human risk taker gene, if there is one, can flourish without the rise in death that would normally accompany it, so the gene passes on, possibly explaining the rise in ADHD and such. (I teach special ed and true ADHD, not including naturally active children, is increasing.) Interesting to think of all the physical and behavioral adaptations no longer suppressed by extinction.

Your blog always gets me thinking and reminiscing.

[Jen Viegas]

The ADHD/risk taking behavior link does seem plausible to me, Joelle. (You had me investigating it a bit, so thank you for getting me to think!) The overall theory proposes that genes act differently on a person depending on his or her environment. It's thought that many conditions and diseases arise in such a manner. How about OCD that has us blogging on the weekend? :)

[mohamed]

I am very happy to this video
I hope more