We turn now to Lambeth, a borough with a proud pugilistic tradition, where an epic battle is raging between two of nature's most tenacious talents: Rattus rattus, or the black rat, and Lumbricus Terrestris, otherwise known as the humble earthworm.
Sadly for fight-fans everywhere, the two species aren't set to engage in hand-to-hand (or rather claw to, er, 'wormy head') combat. The feud has been sparked by a wily caretaker at Dunraven school in Streatham. No doubt aware of the various rat-based mishaps to hit London this year, David Parry has deployed a veritable army of earthworms, some 300,000 of them, to masticate their way through the school's food waste, hence leaving less for the ravenous rats and hopefully convincing them to sling their hook and dine elsewhere.
Dunraven's wormeries are the first to be deployed in a London school, and will contribute to an eco-drive by turning 90% of food waste into rich worm-cast, a potent fertiliser that will be used on the school's flower beds.
Sounds good in theory, but we're a little concerned at where such amateur Darwinism could lead. Who knows what may happen when worm and rat are introduced to eachother in such quarters. We've seen Tremors, and we know the havoc that batshit crazy giant worms can cause. Imagine a batshit crazy giant worm with a rat riding on its back, sitting in a little rat saddle and charging into battle against the human race like Ghengis Khan marauding across Eurasia?
It could happen, folks, and yes, we have been watching a lot of David Cronenberg films recently as it happens.
Earthworm pic courtesy of pfly's Flickrstream under the Creative Commons Attribution license
