A groundskeeper in Rio de Oro de Santa Ana, province of San Jose, was cleaning up weeds and brush in an empty lot when he suddenly ran into a creature that resembled a large snake, but far uglier and slimier. The groundskeeper was startled and could have hacked the unsightly organism to pieces with his machete; fortunately, he isolated the animal and conferred with neighbors, who ultimately called in a zoologist from the University of Costa Rica (UCR).

It turns out that the vertebrate in question is a Gymnopis multiplicata, a giant earthworm species from the Dermophidae family that in Costa Rica is sometimes known as “Solda con Solda.” According to a report by Karla Barquero of online news daily CRHoy.com, an investigator from the UCR Museum of Zoology was called in to the scene of the finding. Biologist Alejandro Zolorzano explained:

“These are amphibians just like our salamanders, frogs, toads, etc. They look like giant earthworms, but in fact they feed on them. They are harmless and can be found all over Central America, but this one in particular is quite large. It measures 80 centimeters in length and is 10 centimeters thick. We are going to take this record-breaker to the Museum for research, which will later be published in the Mesoamerican Review of Herpetology scientific journal.”

Here is the description in AmphibiaWeb:

Gymnopis multiplicata reaches a body length of up to 500mm. The eye is covered by skin and bone, and can not be seen. The tentacle lies anterior to the eye. Teeth are monocuspid, slightly recurved, slightly arrow head shaped, and diminish in height posteriorly. Splenial teeth are present. The number of teeth increases slowly with age. The vent, is simple, transverse and lobed, and the male intromittent organ has 8-10 elongate lobes and appears fluted when everted. There are mineralized denticles embedded in the annuli of the dermal scales. There are 112-133 primary annuli and 64-117 secondaries. There are two nuchal collars, the anterior one possessing a transverse dorsal groove, and the posterior one grooved but mostly fused with the first primary annulus.

These outsized earthworms are more abundant in Isla del Caño near Drake Bay, but they have spread across the country over the last two decades. If you run into one of them in Costa Rica, it means that there is an abundance of normal-sized earthworms in the area, and that your live in a region blessed with fertile soil.