I might be a little feverish right now. (Just a common cold, nothing to worry about, but annoying).
Yesterday while I watched the Lucy Factor frolic in the leaves I unearthed a large worm.
Milo is scared of worms. Also of slugs, but not snails. They rank right up there with tickle monkeys which are the thing he is most terrified of.
However Milo was still at school so we were able to study this worm without his yelps of anguish.
It was large and relaxed. Also moist and hued in purples and pinks.
I had never noticed the lighter band of muscle around the lower end of the worm’s body. As a child I was more interested in large, striped Italian snails and once filled my pockets with them.
I can only presume this band of muscle helps the worm perambulate, but it looked like a flexible cuff you’d attach to a pipe over two joined pieces, and I wondered (idly) if you could slip it off and reveal that the worm’s tail section could in fact be unscrewed.
Maybe they have different ends hanging neatly in a closet in their burrow? A spatulate end for digging. A making-a-quick-get-a-way end with tough fibrous hairs for gripping and propelling. A double-edged end for fierce, close fighting. A spring-like end for launching into the air. A magnifying attachment for inspecting dirt clods and calculating nutritional content.
All possibilities.
The worm lay there sunning itself and giving up no answers.
Eventually the bus came and we went inside.
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4 thoughts on “Worms. In All Their Infinite Mystery.”
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I love the idea of an unscrewable section. The reality is nearly as fascinating.
The light band, as I found out when looking after my wormery, is used for reproduction. But I didn’t know the details. The website http://www.animalcorner.co.uk gives this description:
Earthworms are made up of many small segments known as ‘annuli’. These annuli are ridged and covered in minute hairs that grip the soil allowing the worm to move as it contracts its muscles. At about a third of the worm’s length is a smooth band known as the clitellum. The clitellum is responsible for secreting the sticky clear mucus that covers the worm.… After mating the clitellum begins to secrete a substance which hardens to form a ring-like cocoon, into which the worm’s own eggs and its partner’s sperm are placed. The 2 millimetre cocoon eventually slips off the worm’s head end and closes, becoming lemon-shaped. Fertilisation occurs inside the cocoon. This elaborate procedure is designed to prevent self-fertilisation.
How cute! I’d like them to have a fluffy purple end too. Something sparkly would lookd nice. I didn’t know Milo was scared of worms & slugs. I hate slugs too. I don’t know what a tickle monkey is though.
What a good idea! They could have “disguise-my-bottom-end-as-a-caterpillar” screw-ins.
Tickle monkeys are the most fearsome thing in the universe.
Someone (who subscribes to a wormery newsletter- what a thrilling read that must be!) told me the pinkish band means that the worm is going to have eggs.
It never actually occurred to me that worms lay eggs.