Rhinodrilus fafner is a presumed extinct giant earthworm

Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...

 from the family Glossoscolecidae

Glossoscolecidae

Glossoscolecidae is a large family of earthworms which has native representatives in South and Central America. The species Pontoscolex corethrurus has a circumtropical distribution....

. It is only known by the ill-preserved holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 discovered in 1912 near Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...

 in the Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian state of Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

 and described in 1918 by German zoologist Wilhelm Michaelsen

Wilhelm Michaelsen

Wilhelm Michaelsen was a German zoologist. His principal contributions were to the study of Oligochaeta.After finishing high school he studied mechanical engineering...

 (1860–1937) from the National History Museum in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. The collected individual has a length of 210 centimetre and the body which consists of 600 single segments is 24 millimetre in diameter. Along with Amynthas mekongianus (Cognetti, 1922) and Megascolides australis, Rhinodrilus fafner is among the largest known giant earthworms. Rhinodrilus fafner was confined to a small habitat and vanished possibly due to habitat destruction. It was officially declared extinct by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment (MMA) in 2003. However, the rediscoveries of the Giant Palouse earthworm

Giant Palouse earthworm

The giant Palouse earthworm or Washington giant earthworm is a species of earthworm belonging to the genus Driloleirus found in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington state as well as parts of Idaho in the United States. The worm was discovered in 1897 by Frank Smith near Pullman, Washington...

 in 2005 and the Brazilian earthworm Fimoscolex sporadochaetus in 2007 created hope that Rhinodrilus fafner may be found again.

External links

• Body Size Range
• Oligochaeta (Italian)