earthworms: tube friend! cylinder comrade! one of nature's most underappreciated logistics workers! literally an underground fav of mine!

hammerhead worms: absolute monster. literally toxic. regenerates when cut in half. eats earthworms by melting them and drinking the slurry. chemically scour from existence on sight, anything less may not work.

I am not shitposting by the way. Hell, this is barely hyperbole-posting. Hammerhead worms are terrifyingly invasive and durable, and they do eat earthworms - which, because earthworms are a foundational part of the ecosystem, has *enormous* knock-on effects as hammerhead worms spread into new areas. If you see hammerhead worms, do not cut them in half or touch them with your bare hands - put them in a jar, then add salt or vinegar or bleach or honestly anything bad for organic tissue to the jar, then lid that jar and freeze it for 48 hours or until the worm is dead. Also notify your local department of natural resources with your find and the location.

I fucking love nature and I am telling you to *literally take any and all measures at your disposal to chemically eradicate these fuckers.*

It takes a hell of a lot for me to say that. I feel bad dunking fleas in soapy water sometimes, to give you an idea of my mindset. But hammerhead worms bypass *all of that* due to the potential ecological disruption they could cause.

Fluorinate the hell out of those worms if you possibly can.

"wait hang on fluorinate?"

look,

the only reason I'm not saying nuke them is because I'm not entirely sure they'd care about the radiation.

@LexYeen Some things can survive nuclear radiation. Nothing can survive fluorination.
-F

@Felthry That is *exactly* my point. So glad y'all understand.

@LexYeen Of course, there's the difficulty involved in moving around strong fluorinating agents. It's less of a mess if something goes wrong than nuclear weapons, but things do go wrong much more often.
-F

@LexYeen Caro's acid (piranha solution) might be a better option, as you can just make it on-site rapidly using such common and banal ingredients as concentrated sulfuric acid and 30% hydrogen peroxide
-F

@Felthry Mmmm, piranha solution. There's a precious metals refiner I follow on youtube who uses inorganic chemistry to pull chemically-pure silver, gold, and even platinum-group elements out of all kinds of alloys that contain those metals, and that's one of the solutions he mixes as-needed.

@LexYeen It's so easy to make that there really isn't any point in storing it (also it's just as hard to store as concentrated hydrogen peroxide and you can avoid having two bottles of something that just constantly produces oxygen by just making it as needed)
-F