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How Earthworms Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
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Speaker 1: and that makes his debut take two. Rarely do we
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Speaker 1: have a take two, very rarely, but we did today.
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Speaker 1: Yeah we did. We started just kind of talking and
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Speaker 1: shop and Jerry's like, what are you guys doing? Yea, um,
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Speaker 1: but anyway, here we are. We're back, We're happy, everything's
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Speaker 1: good and um we're we're gonna talk a little bit
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Speaker 1: about earthworms, right, Yes? Are you feeling good about this one?
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Speaker 1: I am very interesting stuff. I wrote this article specifically
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Speaker 1: so we can podcast on it. So, chuck y, have
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Speaker 1: you heard of a man named Charles Darwin? You know
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Speaker 1: I love Chuckie d So chuck Chuck the Charles Darwin
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Speaker 1: um very famous for the On the Origin of the
1:05
Speaker 1: Species um incredibly important work. Did you know though, that
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Speaker 1: The Origin of the Species was out sold in the
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Speaker 1: nineteenth century by another book of his called The Formation
1:21
Speaker 1: of Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms, with observations
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Speaker 1: on their habits that sold more copies for real. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: through throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. It was
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Speaker 1: published in one UM and I think like the Origin
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Speaker 1: of the species came a little after that. So, but
1:37
Speaker 1: just during the nineteenth century for a while there, um,
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Speaker 1: the formation of vegetable mold was crazy out selling on
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Speaker 1: the origin of the species. I saw today where he
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Speaker 1: studied earthworms for thirty nine years. Yeah, it was. This
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Speaker 1: book was very near and dear to his heart, like
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Speaker 1: this topic was. He spent a lot of time really
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Speaker 1: looking at earthworm. I guess he died because why would
2:02
Speaker 1: you give up at thirty nine? I would say, let's
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Speaker 1: just make it an even forty. I think he wrote
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Speaker 1: the book and was like, Okay, don't you go. I'm done.
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Speaker 1: I'm onto some Let's go to Galapagos exactly you know,
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Speaker 1: um he uh. He came up with in this thirty
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Speaker 1: nine years and in this book some very um, very
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Speaker 1: well understood observations that are still accepted today. Right. Um.
2:23
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, we have a quote from
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Speaker 1: him as read by him. All right, you want to hear.
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Speaker 1: It may be doubted whether there are many other animals
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Speaker 1: which have played so important apart in the history of
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Speaker 1: the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. So there
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Speaker 1: you have it. Wow, the earthworm is very, very important.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know he talked like that. I didn't either.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of surprising, um, but he. Uh. This this idea,
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Speaker 1: this concept that the earthworm is extremely important to the
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Speaker 1: earth was kind of put forth by Darwins and accepted
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Speaker 1: as gospel since them and in the decades and centuries
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Speaker 1: since Darwin. He did such a good job that earthworm
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Speaker 1: research kind of fell by the wayside. Scientific community was classifying,
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Speaker 1: classifying as extinct, like worms they just hadn't seen in
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Speaker 1: a while that would just later pop back up, like
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Speaker 1: the giant pelouse earthworm in the Pacific northwest of the
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Speaker 1: United States. It was thought to be extinct, classified as
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Speaker 1: such in the eighties, and then in two thousen it
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Speaker 1: pops up and they're like, oh, it's not extinct. The
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Speaker 1: worm popped up. And that happens a lot with earthworms,
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Speaker 1: like people just classified him as extinct. So this kind
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Speaker 1: of like these appearances of kind of reinvigorated science and
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Speaker 1: it's inquiry into earthworms. I wonder how he got on it, Darwin. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean out of all the different things he was studying.
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Speaker 1: I wonder how he honed in on the earthworm and
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Speaker 1: knew its value, just because if no one else had
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Speaker 1: studied its value, I would never look at an earthworm
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Speaker 1: and think it's very valid able at all. No, but
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Speaker 1: people before Darwin realized the value of earthworms like aristotles
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Speaker 1: of the soil. No, but he's the one who dedicated
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Speaker 1: thirty nine years to studying them. Um So just in
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Speaker 1: sheer size alone, um, I guess in sheer volume is
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Speaker 1: a better way to put it. Earthworms are there. They
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Speaker 1: have a substantial impact on earth. I think, so three
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Speaker 1: thousand species. Notice it didn't say species species. You know
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Speaker 1: people say species. Sorry species Germans know a lot of
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Speaker 1: people say species as species, species, species, species. I don't
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Speaker 1: know which one I say. I think both acceptable. I
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Speaker 1: think not species. Yeah. Uh. They have reigned in size
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Speaker 1: from about a centimeter to nine feet, although they go
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Speaker 1: away more than that. Yeah. I think the world record
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Speaker 1: I found was one in South Africa was twenty two
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Speaker 1: ft long. Twenty two ft long earthworm. That's huge, and
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Speaker 1: there are plenty others. Japan has some giant ones, Australia
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Speaker 1: does too. Of course, I found one. We'll talk about that.
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Speaker 1: Lots of giant freaks of nature. But here's here's the
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Speaker 1: cool stat of the day for me. Uh Plus, we
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Speaker 1: get to say the word hectare just close to two
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Speaker 1: and a half acres. Yeah, it's like two point four
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Speaker 1: seven single hecked air. You can find five hundred thousand
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Speaker 1: to two million worms, and their total biomass wet biomass
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Speaker 1: equals ten times a total weight of all the other
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Speaker 1: animals living above ground combined on that same size spot
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Speaker 1: of land, on that same heck there. Yeah, that's nutty.
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Speaker 1: That is nutty, especially considering that worms don't go that
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Speaker 1: deep into the soil. Let's say there's twelve deer on
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Speaker 1: that heck dare I mean, that's gonna be a lot
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Speaker 1: of weight right there. It's just from the deer. Say
5:51
Speaker 1: say each deer weighs a hundred and fifty pounds, it's
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Speaker 1: like eight hundred pounds and a dozen deer some amount
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Speaker 1: of kilograms. Yeah, that's probably like n So the point
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Speaker 1: is a lot of worms. Yeah, there are, there's a
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Speaker 1: ton of worms. Um, they're spread all over the place.
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Speaker 1: But here's an interesting fact. If um, if you've read fourteen,
6:14
Speaker 1: you probably already know this Charles Man's brilliant follow up
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Speaker 1: to his triumphant I can't wait for fo Yeah, look
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Speaker 1: out for that one. He's just gonna pick some random
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Speaker 1: date like um. If the if you go into uh,
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Speaker 1: the average North American woods in the northern United States,
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Speaker 1: say um, and you find an earthworm, that earthworm. Had
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Speaker 1: you dug in the same spot five hundred years before,
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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have found any earthworms there. Like all earthworms
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Speaker 1: in North America and Canada above about the forty degree
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Speaker 1: latitude UM are new. They're relatively recent immigrants from Asia
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Speaker 1: and Europe, and they hitched a ride thanks to the
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Speaker 1: coling to America in plants the soil. Yeah, root balls
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Speaker 1: that were attached to plants um that were imported to
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Speaker 1: the United States and Canada. UM from Asia and Europe. Yes, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: I have a question. Yes, I have a few questions
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Speaker 1: for you, because you wrote this and it's always nice
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Speaker 1: to speak to the author, and you're right in front
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Speaker 1: of me. So how's how's that I'm right here? Uh?
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Speaker 1: Do they know what was here before the ice age
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Speaker 1: that killed off all the original native species? Surely there
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Speaker 1: were worms. Then it's an excellent question. No, they don't know.
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Speaker 1: Now they know that, I guess not because it was
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Speaker 1: pretty ice age. It's not like they had records. There
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Speaker 1: were some there's there's fossil there's fossil records of earthworms
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Speaker 1: that go back like a hundred and sixty five million years,
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Speaker 1: like there was a huge giant earthworm that it was
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Speaker 1: armor plated. Right. But yeah, but the stuff in North America,
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Speaker 1: apparently the fossil record is fairly incomplete here. Um, they
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Speaker 1: do suspect that a lot of worms made their way
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Speaker 1: southward towards warmer ground when these glacial ice sheets started
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Speaker 1: bearing down from Canada. Everything, a lot of stuff died,
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Speaker 1: some stuff high tail it south. So you can bet
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Speaker 1: that if you go to southern California or Mexico and
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Speaker 1: big and find a worm, that's probably the same species
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Speaker 1: that were higher up, species that were further north, you know,
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Speaker 1: prior to the last because you make a point later
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Speaker 1: that it's considered an invasive species because it's not native.
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Speaker 1: But I thought, well, surely they weren't that different before
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Speaker 1: the ice age, right. Well, the species the species that
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Speaker 1: are here, especially um, the common European earthworm, which we
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Speaker 1: here in the United States called nightcrawlers. That's from Europe,
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Speaker 1: which is why it's the common European nightworm. Those are
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Speaker 1: recent immigrants. Those guys weren't here before, right. So the
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Speaker 1: other reason they're invasive, Chuck, is since the end of
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Speaker 1: the last ice Age, say ten to twenty thousand years ago,
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Speaker 1: these woodlands in the north in the United States, uh developed,
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Speaker 1: they adapted, they changed to life without earthworms. Now they're
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Speaker 1: having to adapt to life with earthworms. That makes sense,
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Speaker 1: which makes earthworms invasive. Now, yeah, I get that, that
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Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. All right. Well, hey, look at there.
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Speaker 1: We covered a bit at the end. Yeah, we're gonna
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Speaker 1: get out here early now thanks. Another cool point you
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Speaker 1: make is if you dig down into the earth in
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Speaker 1: your backyard, in the earth a couple of feet, you're
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Speaker 1: probably gonna find all three classifications of earthworm because they're
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Speaker 1: they're classified by where they live in the soil. Because
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Speaker 1: they're also similar in appearance. I mean, yeah, except for
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Speaker 1: like maybe how thick around they are, how many segments
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Speaker 1: they have, um, how long they are. That's pretty much
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Speaker 1: the differences in earthworms. They're all very similar like wherever
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Speaker 1: you are. But there are three classes. And like you said,
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Speaker 1: they're based on where they live, Like there's the ones
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Speaker 1: above ground. Yeah, I've been pronouncing in my head eyak,
10:00
Speaker 1: but GX sounds a lot I like gay do you like? Guy?
10:03
Speaker 1: Let's go with that. Well, because it's a it's derivative
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Speaker 1: of gaya earth and eppie is above. So this is this,
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Speaker 1: This is the classification of earthworms that live like in
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Speaker 1: the leaf litter, which is also called the litter horizon,
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Speaker 1: that pile of leaves and organic material that that covers
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Speaker 1: the soil that these red wigglers. Red worms have a
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Speaker 1: lot to do with the fact that it's you know,
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Speaker 1: eventually gonna be black and slimy. Yeah, almost all of
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Speaker 1: the fact all they have almost everything to do with that.
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Speaker 1: I mean there's other like microbes and protozoa and other
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Speaker 1: stuff like that breaking it down, but the worms are
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Speaker 1: the ones that can get it done. So those red
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Speaker 1: wigglers are fun to play with if you're a kid.
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Speaker 1: Uh so are the next level down you get to
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Speaker 1: the indo gaeic as we'll say. Now they live in
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Speaker 1: the top soil that sort of you know how deep
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Speaker 1: like the first several inches, Yeah, you know, like the
10:55
Speaker 1: dark top soil. Good stuff. As I like to call it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and they spend their whole lit beneath the soil, which
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Speaker 1: is why they're usually like very light in color, gray pinkish,
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Speaker 1: they're white, kind of uglier. Yeah. Have you ever seen
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Speaker 1: that movie The Layer of the White Worm. That's a
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Speaker 1: great horror. Yeah, I've heard of Hugh Grants first movies.
11:15
Speaker 1: Awesome was he the white Worm? No? He was the dude. Okay,
11:20
Speaker 1: he played a man. Uh. You say because they live
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Speaker 1: under the soil full time, that the least amount of
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Speaker 1: information is known about them. But another question the next
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Speaker 1: level down that uh and and essek they hold the
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Speaker 1: nightcrawlers the deepest dwelling ones. But it seems like we
11:43
Speaker 1: know more about them than the other guys, a little
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Speaker 1: pink and gray guys. So why would that be? Well,
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Speaker 1: the reason is is because the little pink and gray guys,
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Speaker 1: the epigaic ones um, spend their whole lives underground, so
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Speaker 1: they just stay there. Yes, okay, they also make horizontal burrows, right,
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Speaker 1: so like they don't have to come up at all.
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Speaker 1: They don't. They have almost nothing to do with leaf decomposition.
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Speaker 1: So the nightcrawlers come up and then go back down
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Speaker 1: exactly Not only do nightcrawlers come up, they come up
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Speaker 1: and travel as far as like sixty two ft in
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Speaker 1: a night looking for food. Like they hang out above ground.
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Speaker 1: The epigaic ones you have to dig down for them.
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Speaker 1: They're not coming up to greet you. So the scientists
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Speaker 1: don't have spades. That's what I'm saying, man Like the
12:25
Speaker 1: like science generally was like, Okay, Darwin wrote the book
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Speaker 1: on earthworms. You don't have to any more investigation about that. Interesting.
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Speaker 1: Another cool fact about the nightcrawler is that they go
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Speaker 1: upstairs to to grab some food and bring it back down.
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Speaker 1: They're like, hey, that leaf is really choice and moist,
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Speaker 1: so I'm gonna grab it and take it back downstairs
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Speaker 1: and just chow. So my little belly bursts. I love that. Yeah,
12:52
Speaker 1: but it also kind of gives you an idea of
12:54
Speaker 1: like just how powerful like a nightcrawler is it drags
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Speaker 1: its food back to its house. You know. I used
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Speaker 1: to hate fishing with worms. That's that and the potential.
13:07
Speaker 1: One time I went fishing and caught brim, and um,
13:10
Speaker 1: I didn't have a hook remover and this thing, this
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Speaker 1: brim swallowed this hook like crazy, and I was trying
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Speaker 1: so hard to get it out, and it was just
13:19
Speaker 1: like obvious that this weren't This fish was dying. And
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Speaker 1: one of his buddies was just sitting there almost at
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Speaker 1: the bank, almost up on the ground, watching me, just
13:29
Speaker 1: looking at me like why did you do that? So
13:32
Speaker 1: that and then the that she club that one, I
13:36
Speaker 1: was like stopped looking at me. Fishing just punched the water.
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Speaker 1: Um that the potential of a fish dying, and then
13:42
Speaker 1: the guarantee of worms dying, uh made me quit fishing
13:46
Speaker 1: forever sticks because fish is fun. Fishing is fun. I
13:50
Speaker 1: love to fish, yeah, but I just don't do it anymore.
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Speaker 1: All right, Well that's sad for you. Oh club fish
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Speaker 1: like clubbing, but I won't actually use like a roden reel.
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Speaker 1: Earthworms are segmented Josh, which is also very interesting. Uh.
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Speaker 1: They are from the phylum Annelid, which means ringed worm.
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Speaker 1: And there's about a hundred to a hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: of these rings and they're each controlled separately little muscles,
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Speaker 1: which is very important because they expand and contract to
14:22
Speaker 1: move their little slimy bodies forward. And they have these
14:25
Speaker 1: bristles at the front towards the head the anterior and
14:29
Speaker 1: um that are retractable. They're called settee, and um, they
14:32
Speaker 1: can just go big and dig into the dirt and
14:36
Speaker 1: hold the head in place while the rest of the
14:39
Speaker 1: body kind of contracts to get smaller to move forward
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Speaker 1: like that. So these sete you go in and out
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Speaker 1: depending on whether the heads moving or is it needs
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Speaker 1: to be anchored so the rest of the body can
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Speaker 1: catch up. And that's how they scoot along at sixty
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Speaker 1: two per night for nightcrawlers. So um, pretty much, Chuck,
15:00
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're naming this one yet, but
15:02
Speaker 1: one of the one of them the suggestions you made
15:05
Speaker 1: was earthworms eating and pooping machines kind of like sharks,
15:09
Speaker 1: and I mean kind of um, but possibly even more
15:13
Speaker 1: beneficial than sharks. Sharks are like an apex predator. Right
15:17
Speaker 1: of course, earthworms are not an apex predator, but like
15:21
Speaker 1: I said, Aristotle call him the intestine of the soil.
15:23
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why is because they just
15:26
Speaker 1: eat and eat and eat, and the stuff that they
15:29
Speaker 1: do eat they poop out. And it's actually what's crazy,
15:34
Speaker 1: remember the digestion um episode, So like the stuff that
15:38
Speaker 1: comes out of us, it's like nobody needs that. It's
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Speaker 1: total waste with the worm, it's actually better than it
15:47
Speaker 1: was before. Warm poop is better than the food it eats. Yeah,
15:51
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. And the way
15:53
Speaker 1: it eats is even cooler. I think. Um, they obviously
15:57
Speaker 1: eat and you're not gonna be able to tell a
15:59
Speaker 1: huge difference between the mouth end and the anus end
16:04
Speaker 1: unless you really dig your fingers in there. But at
16:09
Speaker 1: the mouth end, they're gonna they're gonna pass dirt and
16:12
Speaker 1: organic matter into their mouth and it's gonna go into
16:14
Speaker 1: an area called the crop where they store it for
16:17
Speaker 1: a little while, then into the gizzard. And this is
16:19
Speaker 1: the coolest part to me. In the gizzard, they have
16:22
Speaker 1: these tiny pebbles that they've already eaten, and those pebbles
16:25
Speaker 1: grind the food up even more like a little food
16:28
Speaker 1: processor to make it easier to pass through. That is
16:31
Speaker 1: so cool. And uh, in the intestinal walls, they they're
16:35
Speaker 1: aligned with blood vessels and sort of like our own
16:38
Speaker 1: blood vessels, they absorb and distribute nutrients. So it's not
16:42
Speaker 1: that much different than people. Yeah, no, it's not the
16:45
Speaker 1: thing about earthworms though, is the nutrients, especially nitrogen um,
16:51
Speaker 1: that they eat that they pass out is about of
16:56
Speaker 1: what was say, locked into a leaf, so they only
16:59
Speaker 1: keep like a order of the available nitrogen for themselves.
17:03
Speaker 1: But through digestion, what was once just locked into this
17:06
Speaker 1: leaf and was totally unusable to like a tree root,
17:10
Speaker 1: is now digested and broken up and available. It's called
17:15
Speaker 1: nitrogen fixing. And that's what worms do. They're casting their
17:18
Speaker 1: feces is broken down nitrogen, which is why people use
17:23
Speaker 1: worms for composting. That's exactly right there, the secret ingredient.
17:28
Speaker 1: While they're not secret but key ingredient to compost. But
17:32
Speaker 1: that's the that's the epigayic right. The ones that live
17:37
Speaker 1: above ground, the compost ones, the earthworms, like the annesic ones,
17:42
Speaker 1: they're big into composting two but they do it below ground.
17:46
Speaker 1: Um earthworm has five hearts. Kind of a neat fact
17:51
Speaker 1: right there. I would say aortic arches and uh I
17:55
Speaker 1: saw I think I saw in another photo like they
17:57
Speaker 1: have one of the main ones is that and then
18:00
Speaker 1: four other ones? Are they all equal? I think that
18:03
Speaker 1: they are. There's a main one, I believe, so you
18:06
Speaker 1: think I know you and chuck. The breathing through their
18:11
Speaker 1: skin is another cool trait. They don't have lungs, but
18:14
Speaker 1: they still need to breathe, so they just pass it
18:17
Speaker 1: passively through the skin inhaling and exhaling. There's no inhaler
18:22
Speaker 1: exhale because it just happens. But I call that an inhale.
18:26
Speaker 1: Even though when I was writing this, I had to
18:29
Speaker 1: go back. I was like, no, they're not inhaler. Yeah. Um,
18:32
Speaker 1: as long as their skin is coated in this mucus
18:35
Speaker 1: that they produced, that's how air exchanges is allowed to
18:38
Speaker 1: take place. Um. And if there's enough broken down available
18:43
Speaker 1: oxygen in a body of water, a worm can live
18:47
Speaker 1: in water. It can survive in water for a while
18:51
Speaker 1: because the air exchange is still taking place. They're just
18:53
Speaker 1: grabing oxygen. Yeah. Um. The problem is is when they
18:57
Speaker 1: encounter like really dry hot air like above ground. Yeah.
19:00
Speaker 1: I think we've all seen that sad, sad site. Right.
19:02
Speaker 1: So if you if you've ever seen like a worm
19:05
Speaker 1: that's curled up and is dry on the sidewalk that
19:08
Speaker 1: were suffocated to death because it wasn't able to breathe.
19:12
Speaker 1: That's mucus dried out. I couldn't breathe, you know, and
19:15
Speaker 1: all it needed to do is reach those leaves, but
19:19
Speaker 1: it failed on the sidewalk and that happens a lot
19:21
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Obviously you see a lot of those in
19:23
Speaker 1: the summertime. Uh. And to to make sure that they survive.
19:28
Speaker 1: They don't have eyes, so it's not like they can say, oh,
19:30
Speaker 1: the sun's out, but they're able to sense light through
19:33
Speaker 1: these photo sensitive cells on their skin that convert light
19:38
Speaker 1: into electrical impulses. So they feel this and say, hey,
19:42
Speaker 1: it's sunny out, I need to burrow down a little
19:44
Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, pretty cool, yep. And this is why
19:47
Speaker 1: these buggers have survived for so long. It is. And um,
19:50
Speaker 1: that's also the role for their brain that their brain
19:54
Speaker 1: plays is to say, I'm sensing some light, so let's
19:58
Speaker 1: move down a little for there where there's not light.
20:02
Speaker 1: That's pretty much the extent of the worm brain. Yeah,
20:05
Speaker 1: that's what I saw. They said, if you remove the brain,
20:08
Speaker 1: then you're hardly going to notice any change in behavior,
20:11
Speaker 1: except I guess they would dry up in the sun. Yeah. Right,
20:16
Speaker 1: So maybe that's what we've seen is brainless worms on sidewalks. Yeah,
20:20
Speaker 1: or maybe they lost part of it. Someone remove their brains.
20:23
Speaker 1: We can go ahead and talk about that the regeneration. Okay,
20:26
Speaker 1: go ahead, because I need some explanation on that part.
20:28
Speaker 1: I get it a worm if if it's part of
20:32
Speaker 1: it is chopped off somehow, Um, they can regenerate uh
20:37
Speaker 1: more more towards the tail than the head. Is that right?
20:39
Speaker 1: So like that if you cut a worm in half,
20:42
Speaker 1: only one half is going to regenerate. Most likely it's
20:46
Speaker 1: the head end that they have an easier time regenerating
20:50
Speaker 1: their tail than they have their head. That makes sense. Um.
20:53
Speaker 1: The thing is is one of the joys of this
20:56
Speaker 1: is like anytime there's a question or something's vague, can
21:00
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, science really dropped the ball on earthworm
21:02
Speaker 1: research for a century. They there there's evidence that like
21:08
Speaker 1: and both sides can regenerate into two new worms. People
21:11
Speaker 1: have documented this supposedly, Um, there's like different, um, contrary
21:17
Speaker 1: evidence about how much could regenerate or how little, like
21:22
Speaker 1: how little of a segment you need to regenerate into
21:24
Speaker 1: a new worm. So there's a bunch of apparently there's
21:27
Speaker 1: a bunch of evidence out there that says like worms
21:29
Speaker 1: are spectacular regenerating and others are saying they're a little
21:32
Speaker 1: more limited than we think. Well, any kind of regeneration
21:35
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing if you ask me, Yeah, I agree.
21:37
Speaker 1: But if you want to make a bet with your friend,
21:40
Speaker 1: a very cruel friend who had just cut a worm
21:42
Speaker 1: directly in half, which end was going to regenerate, always
21:45
Speaker 1: put your money on the tail end. I could never
21:48
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a little worm. I could never
21:50
Speaker 1: do that because they just squirmed so much like they're
21:53
Speaker 1: in horrible pain. You know. Yeah, have you read considered
21:57
Speaker 1: the lobster David Foster Wallace, like his his article for
22:01
Speaker 1: Gourmet magazine. Well, they sent him to like the Lobster Festival,
22:06
Speaker 1: and we were just expecting like a kind of a
22:09
Speaker 1: travel foodie article, and instead he went and did a
22:13
Speaker 1: bunch of research on whether or not lobsters feel pain
22:15
Speaker 1: because they're boiled to death. Yea, and definitely make noises
22:18
Speaker 1: to when that happened. They do. They scratch like the
22:21
Speaker 1: pot trying to get out. They do. But the key
22:24
Speaker 1: is is like, yes, surely they feel pain. Of course
22:28
Speaker 1: they feel pain. Um, they it's been shown that they
22:30
Speaker 1: have nerve receptors that you know, since pain, do they
22:33
Speaker 1: experience suffering? So that weren't squirming in in pain and
22:38
Speaker 1: suffering or just pain and really doesn't matter, I mean,
22:41
Speaker 1: and think inflicting pain on anything is cruel, but inflicting
22:44
Speaker 1: suffering is evil. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need a much lobster.
22:50
Speaker 1: Yeah you me um read that and was like, I'm
22:52
Speaker 1: never eating lobster again. I was like, I like a
22:55
Speaker 1: good lobster disk though I love lobster man. But there's
22:59
Speaker 1: another cool thing from this article. Did you know that
23:02
Speaker 1: until probably about the twentieth century, people considered lobster like
23:07
Speaker 1: sea insects. It was for like the the the poor,
23:14
Speaker 1: and the basically the lower classes. And there were actually
23:17
Speaker 1: laws apparently in New England about how many times a
23:21
Speaker 1: week you could feed patients in an insane asylum lobster
23:24
Speaker 1: because it was considered cruel. I believe that because from
23:28
Speaker 1: the research I've done, it's amazing that lobsters are considered
23:31
Speaker 1: some great thing now because they're kind of bottom feeding.
23:35
Speaker 1: I think they're liking to spiders as close to anything,
23:38
Speaker 1: and they'll like cannibalize one another. They're just like really crazy, boy,
23:42
Speaker 1: you dip it in that drawn butter. I know it's tough.
23:45
Speaker 1: I can kiss lobsters goodbye too. All right, so let's
23:49
Speaker 1: talk about reproduction. I can handle this first part, but
23:52
Speaker 1: I did get confused when it comes to the clitellum fertilization.
23:58
Speaker 1: So so you know, like the band on an earthworm. Well,
24:01
Speaker 1: let's talk about the first part first. Okay, earthworm reproduction
24:04
Speaker 1: you wanted. This is the fact for me. They're simultaneous
24:07
Speaker 1: from aphrodites, all of them. Yeah. I remember that grouper
24:11
Speaker 1: that was in the tank when we swam with the
24:12
Speaker 1: whale sharks. Do I that's called a sequential hermaphrodite, where
24:16
Speaker 1: like at some point during that grouper's life it changes
24:19
Speaker 1: sex right um, with simultaneous from aphrodites, they have both
24:24
Speaker 1: reproductive organs of male and female for their whole lives,
24:27
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool and another great reason why they
24:30
Speaker 1: have hung around in such vast numbers forever. So what
24:34
Speaker 1: they do if they want to make love is, uh,
24:38
Speaker 1: they do a little New Hampshire Vermont action and line
24:41
Speaker 1: up opposite head to tail. They excrete all that mucus
24:47
Speaker 1: that we were talking about. They excrete so much of
24:50
Speaker 1: that that they form a little mucous tube that they
24:53
Speaker 1: both get in or they're in. I guess that they
24:57
Speaker 1: used to like rub against one another. Well, the trick
25:00
Speaker 1: is though there encased in this too bright So when
25:02
Speaker 1: they release their semen. It's just rubs around until it
25:06
Speaker 1: finds the semen receptacle right of the other worm. Well obviously, right, yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's exactly right. They rub on one another
25:15
Speaker 1: with their slime tubes and their semens all over their
25:17
Speaker 1: slime tubes and then yeah that they that's how they
25:20
Speaker 1: exchange seminal fluid. So I get all that, but this
25:23
Speaker 1: next part confuses me a little, and I might suggest
25:25
Speaker 1: you rewrite it to make it a little easier really
25:28
Speaker 1: before you publish. Well, I this is this is unedited,
25:32
Speaker 1: so I need to go through it. But um, okay,
25:34
Speaker 1: I'll see if I can explain it. And this has
25:37
Speaker 1: taken um largely from a guy named I think his
25:40
Speaker 1: name is Jim Conrad. He wrote some pretty good, interesting
25:44
Speaker 1: and very well written books on earthworms, so it's probably
25:49
Speaker 1: trying not to paraphrase or plagiarized him, which is why
25:53
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'll just make it more confusing than he. Um. Basically,
25:57
Speaker 1: you know the band on the earthworm like saying like Cowler,
26:00
Speaker 1: that thick the thickest band, that's the cli tellum. Yeah, um,
26:07
Speaker 1: and uh but in like three or four segments, why
26:09
Speaker 1: but it's just one segment. So the cli tellum is
26:12
Speaker 1: responsible for creating another band of mucus as slime tube, right,
26:18
Speaker 1: and what that does That carries the eggs. It moves
26:24
Speaker 1: over the earthworm, It moves over the place where the
26:27
Speaker 1: eggs are stored, attaches the eggs to the slime tube um.
26:34
Speaker 1: The slime tube then keeps moving forward across the seminal
26:38
Speaker 1: receptacle where the other worm sperm is now deposited. So
26:42
Speaker 1: as the slime tube with the eggs attach move over
26:45
Speaker 1: the seminar receptacle, the eggs become fertilized by the other
26:50
Speaker 1: worm sperm. That slime tube from the cli tellum keeps
26:54
Speaker 1: going over the head. And as the worm as it
26:56
Speaker 1: passes all the way over the worm's head, it closes
26:59
Speaker 1: off because it's mucus and forms a cocoon. And now
27:03
Speaker 1: inside that cocoon are fertilized war egs fo to roughly
27:07
Speaker 1: for like a nightcrawler. It's about four twenty, could be
27:10
Speaker 1: as little as one twenties the highest I've seen um.
27:13
Speaker 1: And then there's little baby wear mags in there that
27:16
Speaker 1: are now fertilized that we'll sit there for like um.
27:19
Speaker 1: I can't remember how many weeks two to three weeks, okay,
27:22
Speaker 1: and then you get a little newborn babies and they
27:24
Speaker 1: can do this every seven to ten days. Yeah, which
27:28
Speaker 1: is yet another reason why they're abundant and surviving well.
27:31
Speaker 1: Then the other the other point is both worms that
27:34
Speaker 1: are in this mating process can become pregnant or can
27:40
Speaker 1: lay a fertilized cocoon. So there is no such thing
27:44
Speaker 1: as just a male worm or a female orthorm. They're both.
27:46
Speaker 1: They're hermaphroditic. That's pretty awesome. Um, really, that's not the
27:51
Speaker 1: thing come across in this paragraph. Uh, I was slightly confused.
27:56
Speaker 1: I'll rewrite it then, just slightly. Uh, you have to
28:00
Speaker 1: do it now. I need to make a note to Okay, Uh,
28:05
Speaker 1: their life expectancy, it's pretty impressive to a nightcrawler can
28:08
Speaker 1: live up to twenty years but generally live about six
28:12
Speaker 1: to nine, which is man, that is a long time
28:15
Speaker 1: when you're talking about little tiny things that live underfoot. Yeah,
28:19
Speaker 1: you know, compared to like an insect. I mean, that's
28:22
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Red wigglers two to five years, gray worms
28:27
Speaker 1: between one point to five and two point six years.
28:30
Speaker 1: Very specific, Well done. That's a mitaki who who came
28:34
Speaker 1: up with that one. So that's a long time even
28:37
Speaker 1: for the lowly ugly gray worm. Two and two and
28:40
Speaker 1: a half years is pretty pretty good. Yeah. And they
28:42
Speaker 1: actually they have this thing called estivation, which is a
28:45
Speaker 1: form of hibernation. Yeah. I thought that was really cool too. Um,
28:48
Speaker 1: it's actually more efficient than hibernation, and hibernation like you
28:52
Speaker 1: like a bear that's sleeping, they have to gorge themselves
28:55
Speaker 1: before they hibernate because they're going to be their their
28:58
Speaker 1: metabolic processes are still operating, so they're still using up
29:03
Speaker 1: fat stores and food stores. With estivation, it's pretty much
29:07
Speaker 1: as close to death as you can come, Like almost
29:10
Speaker 1: all of your body processes just stop, and he's curl
29:13
Speaker 1: up in a little wormy ball, right, Yeah, to keep
29:15
Speaker 1: their mucus supply abundant. So that's the only thing they're doing,
29:18
Speaker 1: is creating mucus moist Yeah. And the reason they're doing
29:22
Speaker 1: this is because worms definitely have like preferences for like
29:26
Speaker 1: the temperature um and the conditions on the ground the moisture,
29:31
Speaker 1: and when things just don't meet their liking, they estivate.
29:35
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that during the ice age, a
29:37
Speaker 1: lot of worms estivated and died because it didn't get
29:41
Speaker 1: any better for ten thou years. Well, when they they're
29:44
Speaker 1: cold blooded, but when they freeze, they die. Um, you're
29:48
Speaker 1: talking about their preferences between fifty and humidity, which is
29:53
Speaker 1: why Georgia has lots of worms. Between fifty nine and
29:57
Speaker 1: eighty six degree fahrenheit is about what they like. They
30:00
Speaker 1: can survive, but they're not gonna be as active and
30:03
Speaker 1: thrive and outside this conditions, right, that's like when their
30:06
Speaker 1: most active is between those and Um, they will eat
30:09
Speaker 1: any kind of organic matter. This decaying. But this is
30:13
Speaker 1: kind of cool. They found out they actually like certain
30:16
Speaker 1: stuff more than others, which is neto. And the way
30:20
Speaker 1: I read it was because they like the taste, or
30:23
Speaker 1: at least that's how I anthropomorpial anthropomorphs species. Uh. In
30:31
Speaker 1: Washington State they prefer maple over oak, and right here
30:35
Speaker 1: in Georgia they prefer clover over grass. That's pretty neat.
30:40
Speaker 1: I got lots of clover in my yard too. They'll
30:42
Speaker 1: eat the tar out of that stuff, especially if you
30:46
Speaker 1: tons of worms. If you pulled it and buried it,
30:48
Speaker 1: it would be gone like that. I wonder how they
30:51
Speaker 1: do in the clay here. They do very well as
30:55
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, that they are the reason why,
30:57
Speaker 1: well there one reason why any water can perk late
31:00
Speaker 1: through the clay. But man I had clay in my
31:03
Speaker 1: backyard that like was impenetrable. It seemed like worms can.
31:07
Speaker 1: Worms can penetrate it really to a certain extent. Yeah. Um,
31:12
Speaker 1: the one of the so pretty much what Darwin came
31:17
Speaker 1: up with is that earthworms are extraordinarily helpful. Um, And
31:22
Speaker 1: we'll talk about in a minute, like scientists have come
31:24
Speaker 1: to realize like okay, well there's still an invasive species
31:26
Speaker 1: and as a result, like they it's not all beneficial.
31:30
Speaker 1: But let's talk about the helpfulness first. One of them
31:33
Speaker 1: is basically burrowing down through dense clay, dense soils and
31:39
Speaker 1: creating places called biopores macro pores basically holes in the
31:44
Speaker 1: ground underneath the ground that let water percolate down to
31:48
Speaker 1: prevent flooding above ground, which also filters that water it
31:51
Speaker 1: does as it goes down to the like the water table.
31:53
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, Um, it allows roots to grow more easily,
31:57
Speaker 1: aration plants aerates. Yeah, it brings oxygen down. It basically
32:01
Speaker 1: makes soil more usable for the stuff above ground. Well,
32:05
Speaker 1: they're just basically little tilling machines. They're moving the earth
32:09
Speaker 1: under there, so you don't have to write. We talked
32:11
Speaker 1: about nitrogen fixing with their castings, where they take about
32:18
Speaker 1: casting poop. Is that right, that's that's a nice word
32:21
Speaker 1: for their poop. Worm castings. Um, And apparently Darwin calculated
32:27
Speaker 1: it in ten years, ten years worth of worm castings
32:31
Speaker 1: would cover an acre of of land about two inches thick.
32:36
Speaker 1: So if you took all the worm castings produced by
32:38
Speaker 1: a group of worms in an acre in ten years,
32:41
Speaker 1: you have two inches of worm casting. And they and
32:44
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, I think they only take about
32:48
Speaker 1: of the nitrogen for themselves. They're like world, you can
32:52
Speaker 1: have the other seventy and again it's it's any usable
32:56
Speaker 1: form now as a nutrient. Pretty awesome, yeah, um, but
33:01
Speaker 1: it's not all good. No, it's not all good because
33:04
Speaker 1: they eat too well and they are an invasive species.
33:08
Speaker 1: So because they consume, uh, what do you have here,
33:13
Speaker 1: nine thousand, two hundred and forty pounds or of organic
33:19
Speaker 1: litter for every hectare in eleven weeks. That's too much.
33:24
Speaker 1: Because spiders and lizards and arthropods and snails and frogs
33:28
Speaker 1: and slugs and everything else living down there needs that
33:32
Speaker 1: stuff as well. That's their home, but the worms are
33:34
Speaker 1: taking it for themselves and they give back they well,
33:38
Speaker 1: they definitely do like nitrogen, right, but they're taken too much.
33:42
Speaker 1: So um. There also that there's that litter horizon, that
33:46
Speaker 1: layer of layer of leaves right above the soil um.
33:50
Speaker 1: There's this the layer that's closest to the soil surface.
33:55
Speaker 1: Um that's at the bottom of this leaf layer is
33:58
Speaker 1: called duff. It's like the sponge, dark organic material that
34:03
Speaker 1: is actually a nice little place for a seed to
34:06
Speaker 1: safely just state. So without that duff, without it being
34:10
Speaker 1: there long enough for a seed to start to germanate
34:13
Speaker 1: sorry not just eight but german ate um understory plants
34:18
Speaker 1: like smaller plants, saplings, plants that aren't gonna grow as
34:21
Speaker 1: big as trees in a woodland um are they have
34:24
Speaker 1: trouble taking hold. And actually you can see photos side
34:28
Speaker 1: by side on the Internet of like without worms with worms,
34:32
Speaker 1: and like the difference is like just this waste land.
34:35
Speaker 1: Like with worms, it's missing all sorts of little plants
34:39
Speaker 1: that you see should be there but aren't because the
34:41
Speaker 1: worms are eating their habitat. Actually, like it can reduce
34:46
Speaker 1: the understory canopy between like twenty five and the presence
34:50
Speaker 1: of earthworms can because they eat so much so fast
34:54
Speaker 1: that not enough leaf litters falling to keep the worms
34:58
Speaker 1: happy and a seedlings to grow or keep a place
35:02
Speaker 1: for spiders to live, that kind of thing. Well, and
35:05
Speaker 1: not just spiders, But that works this way all the
35:07
Speaker 1: way up to chain, because you're gonna have mammals, larger
35:10
Speaker 1: mammals that are gonna want to eat vegetables and leaves,
35:14
Speaker 1: and if they're not there, then they're gonna be in trouble,
35:16
Speaker 1: and then we're in trouble. Yeah, what about the deer?
35:19
Speaker 1: Where are we gonna go without deer? I go to
35:23
Speaker 1: the chicken the section of my grocery store. Everything works out.
35:28
Speaker 1: You eat chicken instead of deer. I don't need I
35:32
Speaker 1: don't needt deer. I don't I mean against it. I
35:34
Speaker 1: just don't come upon it that much. Yeah, you have
35:36
Speaker 1: to go to like one of those um processing places
35:39
Speaker 1: out in the country. They always have like deer for sale.
35:43
Speaker 1: They are also contributing to global warming in a way
35:46
Speaker 1: because they are admitting a lots of carbon as they
35:51
Speaker 1: they go through all this organic matter that's gonna some
35:55
Speaker 1: of some of the carbon is gonna be released there
35:57
Speaker 1: or some of us going to be released as carbon.
35:59
Speaker 1: And they have a stat here from Colgate University twenty
36:03
Speaker 1: what are they New York toothbrushis um They contribute as
36:11
Speaker 1: much as an additional of carbon released from the soil,
36:17
Speaker 1: So that's substantial. But there are other studies that show
36:23
Speaker 1: that actually depending on where you are, Like, uh, that
36:27
Speaker 1: Colgate was a North American study, they found that like
36:30
Speaker 1: in Malaysia or Vietnam, like, they're actually better. They actually
36:35
Speaker 1: locked carbon into the soil. So it really depends on
36:38
Speaker 1: where they are. But they're not an invasive species in
36:41
Speaker 1: that study in Vietnam they were native. But at the
36:44
Speaker 1: end of the day, they do a lot more good
36:46
Speaker 1: here in North America than bad. Right, probably depending on
36:49
Speaker 1: whether you're a spider or a small shrub that lives
36:53
Speaker 1: in the woodland. What if you're human? If you're a human, yeah,
36:56
Speaker 1: you love the worm. Yeah. I have a couple of
36:59
Speaker 1: additional little fat X. The biggest worm. I know you've
37:02
Speaker 1: found some in Japan, but the Australian Jipsland earthworm I
37:06
Speaker 1: saw twelve feet long, two pounds. Wow, it's a lot
37:11
Speaker 1: of worm. And what was the japan one? Was that
37:14
Speaker 1: just another giant earthworm? There's just a bunch of like
37:16
Speaker 1: I think, because Japan has been a culture for so long,
37:19
Speaker 1: there's just been a lot of reports on record of
37:22
Speaker 1: giant earthworms found by farmers, so they had a lot
37:25
Speaker 1: of stories. It's worth googling giant earthworms because people have
37:29
Speaker 1: these things wrapped around their neck and stuff, and it's
37:31
Speaker 1: just this big, mindless worm. Like, No, they're not aggressive
37:35
Speaker 1: like they're depicted in tremors, but they're still like, uh,
37:40
Speaker 1: they can eat their weight every day. I saw that.
37:43
Speaker 1: That's a good one. They are able to move forwards
37:46
Speaker 1: and backwards, but they like moving forwards. Yeah, okay, and
37:50
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. If the soil dries up, some
37:53
Speaker 1: of them can actually lose their cletellum, but once they
37:57
Speaker 1: get moist again, it can come back. So that's another
38:01
Speaker 1: survival adaptation. I guess. It's very cool. Pretty cool. So
38:06
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Do you ever eat them? How
38:09
Speaker 1: to eat fried worms? I never did. I don't think
38:13
Speaker 1: if I did, I've blocked it out of my memory
38:14
Speaker 1: because I don't recall eating. Or if I haven't, it
38:17
Speaker 1: wasn't they weren't it wouldn't have been fried. It would
38:19
Speaker 1: have been like somebody who was like, youre eat this right, yeah?
38:23
Speaker 1: Worm sushi? Yeah, but no I haven't. That was a
38:26
Speaker 1: great book, though, Did you read that? Sure? Oh? Sure? Classic?
38:29
Speaker 1: Wasn't it like Judy Bloom? No? It was. I think
38:33
Speaker 1: it was written by a man and they made a
38:35
Speaker 1: movie about it. I never saw them. I didn't either.
38:38
Speaker 1: There's no way I was gonna spoil that childhood memory.
38:42
Speaker 1: It's a good thing and check. All right, Well, if
38:44
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about earthworms, probably wait a
38:47
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and then go see the edited published version,
38:52
Speaker 1: the better version that includes the fact that they can
38:55
Speaker 1: move forward and backwards about earthworms. Just type in earth
39:00
Speaker 1: forms in a couple of weeks at the search bar
39:02
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And I said search bar,
39:06
Speaker 1: which means it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh.
39:12
Speaker 1: This is an email before we do the email that
39:14
Speaker 1: we have a a quick announcement. We get messages from
39:18
Speaker 1: our fans from time to time around the holidays that
39:21
Speaker 1: are suffering in some form or another. Because although the
39:25
Speaker 1: holidays are a great time of the year for for
39:27
Speaker 1: most folks, sometimes it's a very sad time of year
39:29
Speaker 1: for others, and uh, we just want to say generally
39:34
Speaker 1: that we're thinking about you guys. Every time we get
39:36
Speaker 1: one of these emails, we reply and it's it's you know,
39:39
Speaker 1: it's very sad and we wish it was more we
39:41
Speaker 1: could do. But we were thinking about either in the holidays,
39:44
Speaker 1: and we hope everyone out there and this stuff you
39:46
Speaker 1: should know Army is uh is hanging in there. Check.
39:50
Speaker 1: That was very nice of you know. So onto the email,
39:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this sharpa overdue sharp at email from
39:56
Speaker 1: graces Hey, guys and Jerry using it as a collective,
40:00
Speaker 1: she points out. I know this is a while back,
40:03
Speaker 1: but I actually met a sherpa. He's a kid who
40:05
Speaker 1: went to my school for a little while, and he
40:07
Speaker 1: was totally cool with me asking him a thousand and
40:10
Speaker 1: one questions. He thought it was cool that I knew
40:12
Speaker 1: some information, and when I told him about your podcast episode,
40:16
Speaker 1: he wanted to listen to some of it. But before
40:18
Speaker 1: I give you his feedback, here's his story. Until he
40:21
Speaker 1: was five, he lived in a village near Mount Everest,
40:24
Speaker 1: but not so close that he ever got a good
40:25
Speaker 1: look at it. I couldn't imagine he was that near,
40:29
Speaker 1: And then I would think you have to be really
40:31
Speaker 1: really near it to not get a good look at Oh,
40:33
Speaker 1: maybe that was the case. He was so close it
40:36
Speaker 1: was just like a wall, a wall of rock. Uh.
40:41
Speaker 1: And she says, even if he did get a good
40:42
Speaker 1: look at it, he was only five, so he may
40:45
Speaker 1: not remember it. He had to leave his village though,
40:47
Speaker 1: because they were threatened by the maoists, so he moved
40:50
Speaker 1: to a city as a refugee. Uh. And he lived
40:53
Speaker 1: there until last year. From what I understand, they were
40:56
Speaker 1: still under the threat from malice, so they came to
40:58
Speaker 1: America as a refugee. Ill Um. Here's his little additional
41:02
Speaker 1: effects as the plural of Sherpa is Sherpa's So we
41:05
Speaker 1: were right cool. You pronounced the region Solu Kumbo correctly,
41:11
Speaker 1: and he was very excited about that. And he said,
41:14
Speaker 1: there are a lot of potatoes. Now, remember we they
41:18
Speaker 1: started growing potatoes at a certain point and that's the
41:21
Speaker 1: bumper crop. I guess. So that's all he heard of
41:24
Speaker 1: the podcast, only about five minutes of it. He didn't uh.
41:27
Speaker 1: Grace didn't want to make him listen to the whole
41:29
Speaker 1: thing because she felt like he already knew most of
41:32
Speaker 1: the stuff and she didn't want him for him, so uh,
41:35
Speaker 1: he was excited about it. She was excited about it,
41:38
Speaker 1: and she just wants to say thanks for reading this
41:41
Speaker 1: on the year, and that is from Grace. Thanks a lot, Greig.
41:45
Speaker 1: Thank you to your Sherpa friend too for supporting us.
41:48
Speaker 1: And welcome to America, Sherpa boy, and good luck here.
41:53
Speaker 1: Um wow, Chuck here just spreading glad tidings all over
41:57
Speaker 1: the place. Aren't you a great joy? Um? If you
42:00
Speaker 1: wanna spread glad tidings to us or to anybody else
42:04
Speaker 1: through us, you can send us an email at stuff
42:07
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For moral this
42:15
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
42:17
Speaker 1: dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on
42:20
Speaker 1: the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.
42:23
Speaker 1: The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it
42:26
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