Douglas Richard TenNapel is an American animator, writer, cartoonist, video game designer, and comic book artist whose work has encompassed animated television, video games, and comic books. He is best known for creating Earthworm Jim, a character that spawned a video game series, animated series, and a toy line. He is also the creator of the animated television series Catscratch (2005–2007), which aired on Nickelodeon, and was itself a loose adaptation of TenNapel's comic book limited series Gear.
Vermicompost (vermi-compost) is the product of the decomposition process using various species of worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms, to create a mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. This process is called vermicomposting, while the rearing of worms for this purpose is called vermiculture.
The Western Ghats or the Western Mountain range is a mountain range that covers an area of 160,000 km2 (62,000 sq mi) in a stretch of 1,600 km (990 mi) parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight biodiversity hotspots in the world. It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. It contains a very large proportion of the country's flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to this region. According to UNESCO, the Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas. They influence Indian monsoon weather patterns by intercepting the rain-laden monsoon winds that sweep in from the south-west during late summer. The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain called Konkan along the Arabian Sea. A total of 39 areas in the Western Ghats, including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests, were designated as world heritage sites in 2012 – twenty in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, six in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra.
The Lumbricidae are a family of earthworms. About 33 lumbricid species have become naturalized around the world, but the bulk of the species are in the Holarctic region: from Canada and the United States and throughout Eurasia to Japan. An enigmatic species in Tasmania is Eophila eti. Currently, 670 valid species and subspecies in about 42 genera are recognized. This family includes the majority of earthworm species well known to Europeans.
Oligochaeta is a subclass of animals in the phylum Annelida, which is made up of many types of aquatic and terrestrial worms, including all of the various earthworms. Specifically, oligochaetes comprise the terrestrial megadrile earthworms, and freshwater or semiterrestrial microdrile forms, including the tubificids, pot worms and ice worms (Enchytraeidae), blackworms (Lumbriculidae) and several interstitial marine worms.
The Megascolecidae is a taxonomic family of earthworms which is native to Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand and both South East Asia and North America. All species of Megascolecidae belong to the Clitellata class. Megascolecidae are a large family of earthworms and they can grow up to 2 meters in length. The intercontinental distribution of Megascolecidae helps in favouring the Continental Drift theory.
The European mole is a mammal of the order Eulipotyphla. It is also known as the common mole and the northern mole.
Anamudi is a mountain located in Ernakulam district and Idukki district of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the highest peak in the Western Ghats and in South India, at an elevation of 2,695 metres (8,842 ft) and a topographic prominence of 2,479 metres (8,133 ft). The name Anamudi literally translates to "elephant's head" a reference to the resemblance of the mountain to an elephant's head. Anamudi is the highest mountain in peninsular India as well as the largest mountain in Kerala. Meanwhile, the highest independent mountain in Kerala is the Cheriyam mountain in Malappuram district. Cheriyam mountain is located at an elevation of 613 m (2,011 ft) above sea level.
Silent Valley National Park is a national park in Kerala, India. It is located in the Nilgiri hills, has a core area of 89.52 km2 (34.56 sq mi), which is surrounded by a buffer zone of 148 km2 (57 sq mi). This national park has some rare species of flora and fauna. This area was explored in 1847 by the botanist Robert Wight. It is located in the border of Mannarkkad Taluk of Palakkad district, Nilambur Taluk of Malappuram district, Kerala, and Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.
Periyar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary (PNP) is a protected area located in the districts of Idukki and Pathanamthitta in Kerala, India. It is notable as an elephant reserve and a tiger reserve. The protected area encompasses 925 km2 (357 sq mi), of which 305 km2 (118 sq mi) of the core zone was declared as the Periyar National Park in 1982. The park is a repository of rare, endemic, and endangered flora and fauna and forms the major watershed of two important rivers of Kerala: the Periyar and the Pamba.
The giant Palouse earthworm or Washington giant earthworm is a species of earthworm belonging to the genus Driloleirus inhabiting the Palouse region of Eastern Washington and North Idaho, in the United States. The worm was discovered in 1897 by Frank Smith near Pullman, Washington. It can burrow to a depth of 15 feet (4.6 m).
The state of Karnataka in South India has a rich diversity of flora and fauna. It has a recorded forest area of 38720 km2 which constitutes 22.3467719% of the total geographical area of the state. These forests support 25% of the elephant population and 20% of the tiger population of India. Many regions of Karnataka are still unexplored and new species of flora and fauna are still found. The Western Ghats mountains in the western region of Karnataka are a biodiversity hotspot. Two sub-clusters of the Western Ghats, Talacauvery and Kudremukh in Karnataka, are in a tentative list of sites that could be designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The Bandipur and Nagarahole national parks which fall outside these subclusters were included in the Nilgiri biosphere reserve in 1986, a UNESCO designation. Biligiriranga Hills in Karnataka is a place where Eastern Ghats meets Western Ghats. The state bird and state animal of Karnataka are Indian roller and the Indian elephant respectively. The state tree and state flower are sandalwood and lotus respectively. Karnataka is home to 524 tigers.
The Western Ghats in India are home to several species of caecilians (Gymnophiona). Caecilians are legless, burrowing amphibians which mostly live in leaf litter, loose soil, under rocks and decaying logs. They are also found in agricultural fields and only surface during the monsoon. The body is elongated and smooth with a slimy skin. The smaller caecilians superficially resemble earthworms while the larger ones are often mistaken for snakes. However, they can be told apart from earthworms by the presence of eyes, teeth and skeleton and from snakes by the lack of scales on skin. The eyes in caecilians are not well developed which is most likely to be because of their burrowing life style. They are considered as rare which is apparently due to their subterranean habits. To see them one has to search carefully and be at the right place and at the right time. There are few places where they are common, but, at least one species was reported to be abundant in agricultural fields in Kerala. The larger caecilians can resemble snakes, but their skin is smooth, not scaly.
An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. They occur worldwide where soil, water, and temperature allow.
Bipalium is a genus of large predatory land planarians. They are often loosely called "hammerhead worms" or "broadhead planarians" because of the distinctive shape of their head region. Land planarians are unique in that they possess a "creeping sole", a highly ciliated region on the ventral epidermis that helps them to creep over the substrate. Several species are considered invasive to the United States, Canada, and to Europe. Some studies have begun the investigation of the evolutionary ecology of these invasive planarians.
Allolobophora chlorotica, commonly known as the green worm, is a species of earthworm that feeds and lives in soil. This species stands out from other earthworms due to the presence of three pairs of sucker-like discs on the underside of the clitellum. An examination of A. chlorotica specimens from many parts of the British Isles suggests that there are two forms of this species, one with green pigment in the body wall, and one which lacks this pigment, making it pink.
Drawida thomasi is a species of earthworm found from Kakkadampoyil in Kerala. It belongs to the primitive family, Moniligastridae. D. thomasi is approximately 5 cm long and bluish in colour.
Moniligastridae is a family of earthworms native to South and Eastern Asia, containing around 200 species and five genera.
Rhinolophus indorouxii is a recently discovered species of horse-shoe bat in the family Rhinolophidae that is found in Southern India.
Drawida is a genus of annelids belonging to the family Moniligastridae.
