• Earthworm

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  Earthworm information and facts:

  Type: Invertebrate
  Diet: Herbivore
  Average lifespan in the wild: Up to 6 years
  Size: Up to 14 in (35 cm)
  Weight: Up to 0.39 oz (11.2 g)
  Did you know? Contrary to playground legend, if a worm is cut in half, two will not grow.

• Folk names for the earthworm include:
  "dew-worm", "rainworm", "night crawler" and "angleworm". There are 4,400 species of worms - 2,700 different kinds of earthworms to be exact

• Earthworm video.
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  What does a Earthworm look like?

  Earthworms can be from an inch long to twelve feet long but most are from eight to ten inches. Their body is smooth, reddish-brown, and is made up of a tube that looks like it’s inside another tube. They don’t have eyes or ears but do sense heat, light and touch. Since the earthworm doesn’t have lungs or gills, it breathes through its skin.
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  What does a Earthworm eat?

  Earthworms derive their nutrition from many forms of organic matter in soil, things like decaying roots and leaves, and living organisms such as nematodes, protozoans, rotifers, bacteria, fungi. They will also feed on the decomposing remains of other animals. They can consume, in just one day, up to one third of their own body weight.
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  How do earthworms eat?

  Earthworms possess very strong mouth muscles - they do not have teeth. Dew worms or nightcrawlers often surface at night to pull fallen leaves down into their burrow. When the leaf decomposes or softens a little they pull small bits off at a time to munch on. They also "swallow" soil as they burrow and extract nutrients from it.

• What are the natural enemies of the Earthworm?

  Earthworms are a source of food for numerous animals, like birds, rats, and toads, and are frequently used in residential composting and as bait in commercial and recreational fishing. Their numbers are strong throughout their range—they’re even considered agricultural pests in some areas—and they have no special status.

• Why are worms so useful?

  Without the help of worms, every plant and animal that died and fell to the ground would stay right where it fell. Trees, leaves, fruit, nuts, dead animals and food would just keep piling up. Yuck. But worms and other decomposers break down all this refuge. All those trees and leaves becomes rich soil for new seedlings to grow. And the cycle starts all over again!

• How do worms move?

  Worms move around by stretching out their front body and pushing through the soil. Then they pull their back parts up toward their front half so they aren’t stretched anymore. They begin to do this again. That is how they move from place to place. Earthworms have bristles or setae in groups around or under their body. The bristles, paired in groups on each segment, can be moved in and out to grip the ground or the walls of a burrow. Worms travel through underground tunnels or move about on the soil surface by using their bristles as anchors pushing themselves forward or backward using strong stretching and contracting muscles.

• Do earthworms have eyes?

  They do not have eyes but they do possess light- and touch-sensitive organs (receptor cells) to distinguish differences in light intensity and to feel vibrations in the ground.

• How do earthworms breathe?

  Earthworms respire through their skin, and therefore require humid conditions to prevent drying out. They coat themselves in mucus to enable the passage of dissolved oxygen into their bloodstream.

• Earthworm images

  
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