Time for a heapin' helpin' of nope. You better sit down because Texas' northern border is actually-truly under siege by some B-movie special effects looking "herds of earthworms."
Was, at least. Eisenhower State Park Superintendent Ben Herman says the great earthworm-ball mystery of 2015 is already old news. "But, I'll talk to you about them anyway," he joked.
The slimy little fellas showed up during the last week of May and were gone in about two days. The park's biologists dug up a few theories on the strange phenomenon, determining the worms came up en masse from the rain-saturated ground to the surface feeling choked-out by a lack of oxygen, which they absorb through their skin. Constant sky drops pounding on the ground's surface also likely sounded like predators, so really, can we blame them for showing up uninvited?
That's pretty standard stuff. One slightly less obvious explanation involved the gooey, blobby ball formation, which likely helped them share needed body mucus to sustain them while above ground. But, even biologists are a little wigged out by their positioning along the road.
"The one really kind of the remaining mystery is the perfectly even patches in almost a straight line," Herman said.
In an entirely unscientific hypothesis, maybe the center stripes have something to do with it -- other than looking like the pathway to Oz. Can we get some input and/or speculation from readers?
H/t Death and Taxes, and many others