One other, perhaps more parsimonious possibility is that the greenish worms
in question aren't just your everyday garden variety Lumbricus. According to
Pennak (1978), there are 10 families of aquatic oligochaetes in North
America. These range in size from the Tubifex worms you're probably familiar
with, to some orders that routinely reach 30cm in length. One order in
particular, the Haplotaxidae, are primarily terrestrial but occasionally
occur in mud, debris of stream and lake margins, or sewage treatment plant
ponds. I wouldn't want to collect fish food from the latter.
cheers,
Dave
Pennak, R.W. 1978. Fresh water invertebrates of the United States, 2nd ed.
John Wiley and Sons, New York.
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