Officials issue warning after several sightings of dangerous 'hammerhead worm': 'Don't kill it, don't squish it, don't cut it up'
Reported sightings of a creepy and toxic invasive species in North Texas have officials on high alert.
after heavy rainfall, residents have noticed an increasing number of hammerhead worms in the area. The name is self-explanatory, and there's no mistaking them for anything else. At 12-15 inches in length, they make for an unsettling sight that one local described, not unreasonably, as "demonic."
Native to Asia, they belong to the land planarian family of flatworms, which have otherworldly powers of recovery. Decapitation isn't fatal; The Wildlife Trusts noted that some planarians can regenerate from the tiniest fragments, with 1/200th enough to create another fully intact worm. That's why Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller warned, per NBC 5: "The thing people need to know is don't kill it, don't squish it, don't cut it up, because it makes three or four more worms; it's asexual reproduction."