Transcripts

February 3, 2004:
The Fascinating Earthworm
Interview with Amy Stewart, author of The Earth Moved

Amy Stewart:
Not true. If you cut a worm in half, it will probably grow a new tail, but a tail will not grow a new head.

Amy Stewart, author of the book The Earth Moved, on the remarkable achievements of earthworms, says most earthworms you see are not native to North America.

Most people listening to this show, if they went into their backyards and started digging they would probably dig up non-native earthworms. They would dig up, lumbricus terrestris, a night crawler, and a handful of other species that actually came to this country with European settlers.

I bet you didn't know that when earthworms mate…

They can be either male or female, they are both male and female. So, two earthworms will line up head to tail and belly to belly to mate.

The average lifespan of an earthworm is a couple of years and there can easily be a million earthworms under an acre of land. And have you ever noticed that the day after a big rain you'll sometimes see earthworms dried up on the sidewalk.

Earthworms don't have lungs. They breathe by special cells in their skin, and their very sensitive to water. If it's too damp they rise to the surface of the soil to try to get away from the water cause their just not getting enough oxygen. And they move across the surface of the soil, they end up on a sidewalk or on a road, the sun comes out, and they're cooked! They're blind; they don't know where they're going, so they can't get back to safety.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net, I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.