Last week, I received a message from a Gloucester resident who suspected she had found jumping worms in bagged mulch purchased from a local store. If you recall, I wrote about jumping worms in 2019 after another Gloucester resident found worms in her garden that wriggled with snake-like movements. Those worms were sent to the Virginia Tech lab, where they were identified as jumping worms.

So-called “jumping worms” also called Alabama Jumpers, Crazy Snake-Worms, and Jersey Wigglers, can belong to one of several Asian species They are often members of the genus Amynthus, which arrived in the United States about 80 years ago. Jumping worms spread through the eastern and southeastern states, and were discovered several years ago in Wisconsin, Illinois, Oregon, and several northeastern states, including New York.

Earthworms are found all over the world, but the native worm has not existed in North American soil since the last ice age ended about 15,000 years ago. Various species of w...