A highly invasive species of worms from Asia first spotted in Wisconsin in 2013 has now been found in more than a dozen Midwestern states.

New research suggests that feces from Asian jumping worms, an invasive group of earthworms that’s been inching into the US Midwest in recent years, may be negatively affecting habitats.

Asian jumping worms—also known as crazy worms, Alabama jumpers, and snake worms—are native to Southeast Asia, but were accidentally introduced to the southeast United States in the 19th century.

To make matter worse, these worms do not have any natural predators in the United States, so they are free to breed and increase their population, again and again, all while leaving nothing but destruction everywhere they go.

They displace other earthworms, centipedes, salamanders and ground-nesting birds, and disrupt forest food chains. They can invade more than five hectares in a single year, changing soil chemistry and microbial communities as they go, new research shows. And they don’t even need mates to reproduce.

And when these worms consume their meals, they leave the soil depleted and in a bad state. After the Asian jumping worms make their way through a specific part of the ground, the soil becomes altered to the point that it no longer can retain moisture like it once did. Not only does it have the moisture depleted, but the soil also gets stripped of many nutrients and can be made vulnerable to erosion.

The states that have been invaded by this harmful worm include Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.

Experts suggest killing these invasive worms if you see them in your garden or yard, according to AWM:

It is recommended that you kill these worms if you see them in your garden or yard. They can steal all the nutrients from the soil so that local plants and animals no longer have food to survive. With no place to live, the local plants and animals start to die off, and their population gets depleted in proportion to how many of these worms continue to thrive.

If you live in one of the affected states, you can expose these worms in your land to get rid of them. Brad Herrick, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, suggests sprinkling a mixture onto the soil to get these worms to leave it and come out for air.

Herrick suggests getting mustard powder and mixing it with some water. Then pour the mixture on top of your soil and wait for the worms to come squiggling out of the ground. They can emerge as quickly as in thirty seconds.

The formula works because mustard powder irritates the worms’ skin, so they leave the ground and come out to get away from it.

You can identify the Asian jumping worm by a marker on its body. It has a white ring around its body that is close to its head.

Watch it here: UMDHGIC/Youtube

Source: AWM