Excerpts taken from the Biological Recording Company’s website, in a blog written by Keiron Derek Brown
2022 has been a great year for earthworm recording, with 2,185 new earthworm species occurrence records generated! 25 out of the 31 species known to occur in natural environments in the British Isles were recorded, including the National Earthworm Recording Scheme’s first-ever earthworm species records for the Isle of Man.
Earthworm Data
In total, 2,185 new earthworm records were added to the database of earthworm records for the British Isles during 2022. 1,217 of these records were from researchers and 968 resulted from the efforts of earthworm recorders – the second-highest number of earthworm recorder submitted records within a given year since the National Earthworm Recording Scheme launched in 2014.
England was the most recorded territory, accounting for most of the records received (2,156), with small numbers of records received from Rep. of Ireland (8), Bailiwick of Jersey (6) and Scotland (5). No records were received for Wales during 2022.
This also included the first-ever earthworm records received and verified from the Isle of Man – thanks to Sue Harvey. 8 species of earthworm have now been confirmed for the Isle of Man, with the number due to go up further in 2023 following verification of some specimens sent to the Natural History Museum (London).
The Earthworm Society of Britain
The Earthworm Society of Britain now covers all territories within the British Isles (though it’s yet to receive any records for Guernsey, Alderney & Sark), with the total number of accepted earthworm species occurrence records rising to 22,181 at the end of 2022.
You can read the full blog on the Biological Recording Company’s website.
You can see the data shared by the Earthworm Society of Britain on the NBN Atlas.