Darwin’s The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through The Action of Earthworms outsold the Origin of Species. Say whaaaaat?!
Supposedly they are important. Some fun facts from the Stuff You Should Know Podcast: How Earthworms Work:
- 3k+ species
- there is a 22 foot long earthworm (shudder)
- worm poop (broken down nitrogen) is more nutritious than the food they eat
- their “stomachs” have pebbles that help them digest what they eat (like a crocodile!)
- earthworms have five hearts
- they breathe through their skin facilitated by a mucus, they don’t have lungs
- they sense light through cells on their skin, they don’t have eyes (so the graphic in this post is inaccurate) - their brains are used mainly for light sensing - if you remove their brains, there will not be much behavioral change
- you can listen to the podcast to learn about worm sex o_O
I hate to admit it, but they’re pretty neat…
