Eisenia andrei is a close relative of the 'brandling' or 'tiger' worm, Eisenia fetida

Eisenia fetida

Eisenia fetida , known under various common names such as redworm, brandling worm, tiger worm and red wiggler worm, red californian earth worm, is a species of earthworm adapted to decaying organic material. These worms thrive in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure; they are epigeal...

. Like its sibling species, it is epigeic, i.e. it prefers to live in compost or leaf litter rather than mineral soils.

It can be distinguished from E. fetida as it is darker in colour, and the characteristic stripes are less pronounced. However its status as a separate species was only fully confirmed in the mid-1980s by molecular analyses (based on electrophoresis

Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis, also called cataphoresis, is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. This electrokinetic phenomenon was observed for the first time in 1807 by Reuss , who noticed that the application of a constant electric...

 of protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

isoforms).