For the last few years, environmental groups have been calling for the protection of the giant Palouse earthworm ( Driloleirus americanus ), an incredibly rare species (seen only a few times in the past 110 years) that was said to be more than a meter long, smell like lilies and spit at its attackers.
But now scientists have, for the first time since the 1980s, found two live Palouse earthworms, and it looks like the legend doesn’t live up to the hype.