Energetic Earthworms

We have been out late watching a one of our lovely earthworm species,the Common Earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris the last couple of nights www.opalexplorenature.org/soilsurvey . It has been just right for them. Over cast with damp conditions, these are the biggest of our earthworm species in the UK, and they have been coming up to the surface to mate. You will see them lying alongside each other with what looks like a large band around part of their body. This is called a clitellum. They lie alongside each other and pass sperm to each other from their reproductive organs near their head. After fertilization, the clitellum secrets a kind of tube that rolls off the worm carrying the eggs as it does and being deposited in the soil as a cocoon. The cocoon will protect the eggs until they hatch and can contain two to fifteen baby worms. Each adult worm can do this up to three times a week. Be quiet and walk gently, these guys are sensitive and will zoom back in their burrows at top speed if they feel threatened. Remember too that its earthworms that keep our soils healthy with nutrients from their faeces, and by the allowing air and water to travel through their burrows. Got to do a quote here which I do not normally do. Charles Darwin wrote in 1881 “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures” Just about sums it up really.