The Largest Earthworm Discovered in U.K.

The invertebrate is also the heaviest of its kind ever found.

What Paul Rees recently discovered among his vegetables in England's Cheshire County is anything but garden variety: a gigantic earthworm.

Rees's stepson, George, named the behemoth Dave. He's the longest earthworm recorded in the United Kingdom—almost 16 inches—but it's his mass that has really impressed scientists. Dave weighs nearly an ounce, almost twice as heavy as any other wild earthworm ever seen. That's about the size of a small chocolate bar.

Before Dave, the largest earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) was a Scottish specimen found in 2015 that weighed about half an ounce. (Read about the biggest insect that ever lived.)

In London, the Natural History Museum's Emma Sherlock said she was astonished by the find.

“I was bowled over by the size

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