The Giant earthworm

Giant Gippsland earthworm
The giant Gippsland earthworm, is one of Australia's 1,000 native earthworm species. It is also commonly known as karmai, taken from the Bunwurrung language. These giant earthworms average 1 metre long and 2 centimetres in diameter and can reach 3 metres in length. On average they weigh about 200 grams.

They live in the subsoil of blue, grey or red clay soils along stream banks and some south- or west-facing hills of their remaining habitat which is in Gippsland in Victoria, Australia. These worms live in deep burrow systems and require water in their environment to respire. This earthworm species occurs only in a 40,000ha area in south and west Gippsland.

Land clearing across southern Gippsland began back in the late 1800s and by the 1930s there was nothing but roads, some creeks and pasture. According to Beverley, the first records of the earthworm come from the 1870s when farmers were surveying land across the Moe-to-Bunyip railway line along Brandy Creek in Warragal, Victoria.