Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The dirt on earthworms, including earthworm porn

Well, summer’s finally here. I was working in my garden this weekend and happy to see lots of earthworms aerating my soil and making lush compost for my vegetables. Then I suddenly wondered, what do earthworms eat? And even more intriguing… do they have sex? I did some research and found earthworms to be pretty fascinating. Here’s the scoop (for those who don’t already know):

 

 

This information is from wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_worm.

 

 

Earthworms eat undecayed leaves and other plant matter. After it’s gone through processes in the worm’s stomach, it comes out as rich organic matter that is great for the garden.

 

 

And now for the juicy stuff. Earth worms have sex! Who knew? They are monoecious, which means they have both eggs and sperm on them. They have sex by laying on top of each other and exchanging sperm, which they store. Later on, when they’re all relaxed and smoking a cigarette (ha, just kidding), they form a cocoon and insert their own egg and the sperm they got from their “friend” into the cocoon, and then back out of it. At some point later, small but fully formed little worms emerge (though without their sexual parts, which come later – you know, at worm puberty, when they get crabby and irritable).

 

 

They can also regenerate, which is good news, since I’m pretty sure I’ve severed many an earthworm’s back side while hoeing the garden. That assuages a lot of guilt. Whew!

 

Posted by Larisa at 19:33:56
Comments

One Response to “The dirt on earthworms, including earthworm porn”

  1. lugoeghge says:

    I like the style of your writing, however, I do not agree with your opinions.

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