How Earthworms Work

but anyway, here we are. We're back, We're happy, everything's good and um we're we're gonna talk a little bit about earthworms, right, Yes? Are you feeling good about this one? I am very interesting stuff. I wrote this article specifically so we can podcast on it. So, chuck y, have you heard of a man named Charles Darwin? You know I love Chuckie d So chuck Chuck the Charles Darwin um very famous for the On the Origin of the

Species um incredibly important work. Did you know though, that The Origin of the Species was out sold in the nineteenth century by another book of his called The Formation of Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms, with observations on their habits that sold more copies for real. Yeah, through throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. It was published in one UM and I think like the Origin

of the species came a little after that. So, but just during the nineteenth century for a while there, um, the formation of vegetable mold was crazy out selling on the origin of the species. I saw today where he studied earthworms for thirty nine years. Yeah, it was. This book was very near and dear to his heart, like this topic was. He spent a lot of time really looking at earthworm. I guess he died because why would you give up at thirty nine? I would say, let's

just make it an even forty. I think he wrote the book and was like, Okay, don't you go. I'm done. I'm onto some Let's go to Galapagos exactly you know, um he uh. He came up with in this thirty nine years and in this book some very um, very well understood observations that are still accepted today. Right. Um. As a matter of fact, we have a quote from him as read by him. All right, you want to hear.

It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important apart in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. So there you have it. Wow, the earthworm is very, very important. I didn't know he talked like that. I didn't either.

It's kind of surprising, um, but he. Uh. This this idea, this concept that the earthworm is extremely important to the earth was kind of put forth by Darwins and accepted as gospel since them and in the decades and centuries since Darwin. He did such a good job that earthworm

research kind of fell by the wayside. Scientific community was classifying, classifying as extinct, like worms they just hadn't seen in a while that would just later pop back up, like the giant pelouse earthworm in the Pacific northwest of the United States. It was thought to be extinct, classified as such in the eighties, and then in two thousen it pops up and they're like, oh, it's not extinct. The worm popped up. And that happens a lot with earthworms,

like people just classified him as extinct. So this kind of like these appearances of kind of reinvigorated science and it's inquiry into earthworms. I wonder how he got on it, Darwin. Yeah, I mean out of all the different things he was studying. I wonder how he honed in on the earthworm and knew its value, just because if no one else had studied its value, I would never look at an earthworm

and think it's very valid able at all. No, but people before Darwin realized the value of earthworms like aristotles of the soil. No, but he's the one who dedicated thirty nine years to studying them. Um So just in sheer size alone, um, I guess in sheer volume is a better way to put it. Earthworms are there. They have a substantial impact on earth. I think, so three thousand species. Notice it didn't say species species. You know people say species. Sorry species Germans know a lot of

people say species as species, species, species, species. I don't know which one I say. I think both acceptable. I think not species. Yeah. Uh. They have reigned in size from about a centimeter to nine feet, although they go away more than that. Yeah. I think the world record I found was one in South Africa was twenty two ft long. Twenty two ft long earthworm. That's huge, and there are plenty others. Japan has some giant ones, Australia does too. Of course, I found one. We'll talk about that.

Lots of giant freaks of nature. But here's here's the cool stat of the day for me. Uh Plus, we get to say the word hectare just close to two and a half acres. Yeah, it's like two point four seven single hecked air. You can find five hundred thousand to two million worms, and their total biomass wet biomass equals ten times a total weight of all the other animals living above ground combined on that same size spot of land, on that same heck there. Yeah, that's nutty.

That is nutty, especially considering that worms don't go that deep into the soil. Let's say there's twelve deer on that heck dare I mean, that's gonna be a lot of weight right there. It's just from the deer. Say say each deer weighs a hundred and fifty pounds, it's like eight hundred pounds and a dozen deer some amount of kilograms. Yeah, that's probably like n So the point is a lot of worms. Yeah, there are, there's a ton of worms. Um, they're spread all over the place.

But here's an interesting fact. If um, if you've read fourteen, you probably already know this Charles Man's brilliant follow up to his triumphant I can't wait for fo Yeah, look out for that one. He's just gonna pick some random date like um. If the if you go into uh, the average North American woods in the northern United States, say um, and you find an earthworm, that earthworm. Had you dug in the same spot five hundred years before,

you wouldn't have found any earthworms there. Like all earthworms in North America and Canada above about the forty degree latitude UM are new. They're relatively recent immigrants from Asia and Europe, and they hitched a ride thanks to the coling to America in plants the soil. Yeah, root balls that were attached to plants um that were imported to the United States and Canada. UM from Asia and Europe. Yes, Chuck,

I have a question. Yes, I have a few questions for you, because you wrote this and it's always nice to speak to the author, and you're right in front of me. So how's how's that I'm right here? Uh? Do they know what was here before the ice age that killed off all the original native species? Surely there were worms. Then it's an excellent question. No, they don't know. Now they know that, I guess not because it was

pretty ice age. It's not like they had records. There were some there's there's fossil there's fossil records of earthworms that go back like a hundred and sixty five million years, like there was a huge giant earthworm that it was armor plated. Right. But yeah, but the stuff in North America, apparently the fossil record is fairly incomplete here. Um, they do suspect that a lot of worms made their way southward towards warmer ground when these glacial ice sheets started

bearing down from Canada. Everything, a lot of stuff died, some stuff high tail it south. So you can bet that if you go to southern California or Mexico and big and find a worm, that's probably the same species that were higher up, species that were further north, you know, prior to the last because you make a point later that it's considered an invasive species because it's not native. But I thought, well, surely they weren't that different before

the ice age, right. Well, the species the species that are here, especially um, the common European earthworm, which we here in the United States called nightcrawlers. That's from Europe, which is why it's the common European nightworm. Those are recent immigrants. Those guys weren't here before, right. So the other reason they're invasive, Chuck, is since the end of the last ice Age, say ten to twenty thousand years ago, these woodlands in the north in the United States, uh developed,

they adapted, they changed to life without earthworms. Now they're having to adapt to life with earthworms. That makes sense, which makes earthworms invasive. Now, yeah, I get that, that makes perfect sense. All right. Well, hey, look at there. We covered a bit at the end. Yeah, we're gonna

get out here early now thanks. Another cool point you make is if you dig down into the earth in your backyard, in the earth a couple of feet, you're probably gonna find all three classifications of earthworm because they're they're classified by where they live in the soil. Because they're also similar in appearance. I mean, yeah, except for like maybe how thick around they are, how many segments they have, um, how long they are. That's pretty much

the differences in earthworms. They're all very similar like wherever you are. But there are three classes. And like you said, they're based on where they live, Like there's the ones above ground. Yeah, I've been pronouncing in my head eyak, but GX sounds a lot I like gay do you like? Guy? Let's go with that. Well, because it's a it's derivative

of gaya earth and eppie is above. So this is this, This is the classification of earthworms that live like in the leaf litter, which is also called the litter horizon, that pile of leaves and organic material that that covers the soil that these red wigglers. Red worms have a lot to do with the fact that it's you know, eventually gonna be black and slimy. Yeah, almost all of the fact all they have almost everything to do with that.

I mean there's other like microbes and protozoa and other stuff like that breaking it down, but the worms are the ones that can get it done. So those red wigglers are fun to play with if you're a kid. Uh so are the next level down you get to the indo gaeic as we'll say. Now they live in the top soil that sort of you know how deep like the first several inches, Yeah, you know, like the

dark top soil. Good stuff. As I like to call it. Yeah, and they spend their whole lit beneath the soil, which is why they're usually like very light in color, gray pinkish, they're white, kind of uglier. Yeah. Have you ever seen that movie The Layer of the White Worm. That's a great horror. Yeah, I've heard of Hugh Grants first movies. Awesome was he the white Worm? No? He was the dude. Okay, he played a man. Uh. You say because they live under the soil full time, that the least amount of

information is known about them. But another question the next level down that uh and and essek they hold the nightcrawlers the deepest dwelling ones. But it seems like we know more about them than the other guys, a little pink and gray guys. So why would that be? Well, the reason is is because the little pink and gray guys, the epigaic ones um, spend their whole lives underground, so

they just stay there. Yes, okay, they also make horizontal burrows, right, so like they don't have to come up at all. They don't. They have almost nothing to do with leaf decomposition. So the nightcrawlers come up and then go back down exactly Not only do nightcrawlers come up, they come up and travel as far as like sixty two ft in a night looking for food. Like they hang out above ground. The epigaic ones you have to dig down for them. They're not coming up to greet you. So the scientists

don't have spades. That's what I'm saying, man Like the like science generally was like, Okay, Darwin wrote the book on earthworms. You don't have to any more investigation about that. Interesting. Another cool fact about the nightcrawler is that they go upstairs to to grab some food and bring it back down. They're like, hey, that leaf is really choice and moist, so I'm gonna grab it and take it back downstairs

and just chow. So my little belly bursts. I love that. Yeah, but it also kind of gives you an idea of like just how powerful like a nightcrawler is it drags its food back to its house. You know. I used to hate fishing with worms. That's that and the potential. One time I went fishing and caught brim, and um, I didn't have a hook remover and this thing, this brim swallowed this hook like crazy, and I was trying so hard to get it out, and it was just

like obvious that this weren't This fish was dying. And one of his buddies was just sitting there almost at the bank, almost up on the ground, watching me, just looking at me like why did you do that? So that and then the that she club that one, I was like stopped looking at me. Fishing just punched the water. Um that the potential of a fish dying, and then the guarantee of worms dying, uh made me quit fishing

forever sticks because fish is fun. Fishing is fun. I love to fish, yeah, but I just don't do it anymore. All right, Well that's sad for you. Oh club fish like clubbing, but I won't actually use like a roden reel. Earthworms are segmented Josh, which is also very interesting. Uh. They are from the phylum Annelid, which means ringed worm.

And there's about a hundred to a hundred and fifty of these rings and they're each controlled separately little muscles, which is very important because they expand and contract to move their little slimy bodies forward. And they have these bristles at the front towards the head the anterior and um that are retractable. They're called settee, and um, they can just go big and dig into the dirt and hold the head in place while the rest of the body kind of contracts to get smaller to move forward

like that. So these sete you go in and out depending on whether the heads moving or is it needs to be anchored so the rest of the body can catch up. And that's how they scoot along at sixty two per night for nightcrawlers. So um, pretty much, Chuck, I don't know what we're naming this one yet, but one of the one of them the suggestions you made was earthworms eating and pooping machines kind of like sharks, and I mean kind of um, but possibly even more

beneficial than sharks. Sharks are like an apex predator. Right of course, earthworms are not an apex predator, but like I said, Aristotle call him the intestine of the soil. And one of the reasons why is because they just eat and eat and eat, and the stuff that they do eat they poop out. And it's actually what's crazy, remember the digestion um episode, So like the stuff that comes out of us, it's like nobody needs that. It's total waste with the worm, it's actually better than it

was before. Warm poop is better than the food it eats. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. And the way it eats is even cooler. I think. Um, they obviously eat and you're not gonna be able to tell a huge difference between the mouth end and the anus end unless you really dig your fingers in there. But at the mouth end, they're gonna they're gonna pass dirt and organic matter into their mouth and it's gonna go into an area called the crop where they store it for

a little while, then into the gizzard. And this is the coolest part to me. In the gizzard, they have these tiny pebbles that they've already eaten, and those pebbles grind the food up even more like a little food processor to make it easier to pass through. That is so cool. And uh, in the intestinal walls, they they're aligned with blood vessels and sort of like our own blood vessels, they absorb and distribute nutrients. So it's not

that much different than people. Yeah, no, it's not the thing about earthworms though, is the nutrients, especially nitrogen um, that they eat that they pass out is about of what was say, locked into a leaf, so they only keep like a order of the available nitrogen for themselves. But through digestion, what was once just locked into this leaf and was totally unusable to like a tree root, is now digested and broken up and available. It's called

nitrogen fixing. And that's what worms do. They're casting their feces is broken down nitrogen, which is why people use worms for composting. That's exactly right there, the secret ingredient. While they're not secret but key ingredient to compost. But that's the that's the epigayic right. The ones that live above ground, the compost ones, the earthworms, like the annesic ones, they're big into composting two but they do it below ground. Um earthworm has five hearts. Kind of a neat fact

right there. I would say aortic arches and uh I saw I think I saw in another photo like they have one of the main ones is that and then four other ones? Are they all equal? I think that they are. There's a main one, I believe, so you think I know you and chuck. The breathing through their skin is another cool trait. They don't have lungs, but they still need to breathe, so they just pass it passively through the skin inhaling and exhaling. There's no inhaler

exhale because it just happens. But I call that an inhale. Even though when I was writing this, I had to go back. I was like, no, they're not inhaler. Yeah. Um, as long as their skin is coated in this mucus that they produced, that's how air exchanges is allowed to take place. Um. And if there's enough broken down available oxygen in a body of water, a worm can live in water. It can survive in water for a while because the air exchange is still taking place. They're just

grabing oxygen. Yeah. Um. The problem is is when they encounter like really dry hot air like above ground. Yeah. I think we've all seen that sad, sad site. Right. So if you if you've ever seen like a worm that's curled up and is dry on the sidewalk that were suffocated to death because it wasn't able to breathe. That's mucus dried out. I couldn't breathe, you know, and all it needed to do is reach those leaves, but it failed on the sidewalk and that happens a lot

in Georgia. Obviously you see a lot of those in the summertime. Uh. And to to make sure that they survive. They don't have eyes, so it's not like they can say, oh, the sun's out, but they're able to sense light through these photo sensitive cells on their skin that convert light into electrical impulses. So they feel this and say, hey, it's sunny out, I need to burrow down a little bit more. Yeah, pretty cool, yep. And this is why

these buggers have survived for so long. It is. And um, that's also the role for their brain that their brain plays is to say, I'm sensing some light, so let's move down a little for there where there's not light. That's pretty much the extent of the worm brain. Yeah, that's what I saw. They said, if you remove the brain, then you're hardly going to notice any change in behavior, except I guess they would dry up in the sun. Yeah. Right,

So maybe that's what we've seen is brainless worms on sidewalks. Yeah, or maybe they lost part of it. Someone remove their brains. We can go ahead and talk about that the regeneration. Okay, go ahead, because I need some explanation on that part. I get it a worm if if it's part of it is chopped off somehow, Um, they can regenerate uh more more towards the tail than the head. Is that right? So like that if you cut a worm in half,

only one half is going to regenerate. Most likely it's the head end that they have an easier time regenerating their tail than they have their head. That makes sense. Um. The thing is is one of the joys of this is like anytime there's a question or something's vague, can be like, yeah, science really dropped the ball on earthworm research for a century. They there there's evidence that like

and both sides can regenerate into two new worms. People have documented this supposedly, Um, there's like different, um, contrary evidence about how much could regenerate or how little, like how little of a segment you need to regenerate into a new worm. So there's a bunch of apparently there's a bunch of evidence out there that says like worms are spectacular regenerating and others are saying they're a little

more limited than we think. Well, any kind of regeneration is pretty amazing if you ask me, Yeah, I agree. But if you want to make a bet with your friend, a very cruel friend who had just cut a worm directly in half, which end was going to regenerate, always put your money on the tail end. I could never I mean, it's just a little worm. I could never do that because they just squirmed so much like they're

in horrible pain. You know. Yeah, have you read considered the lobster David Foster Wallace, like his his article for Gourmet magazine. Well, they sent him to like the Lobster Festival, and we were just expecting like a kind of a travel foodie article, and instead he went and did a bunch of research on whether or not lobsters feel pain because they're boiled to death. Yea, and definitely make noises to when that happened. They do. They scratch like the pot trying to get out. They do. But the key

is is like, yes, surely they feel pain. Of course they feel pain. Um, they it's been shown that they have nerve receptors that you know, since pain, do they experience suffering? So that weren't squirming in in pain and suffering or just pain and really doesn't matter, I mean, and think inflicting pain on anything is cruel, but inflicting suffering is evil. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need a much lobster. Yeah you me um read that and was like, I'm never eating lobster again. I was like, I like a

good lobster disk though I love lobster man. But there's another cool thing from this article. Did you know that until probably about the twentieth century, people considered lobster like sea insects. It was for like the the the poor, and the basically the lower classes. And there were actually laws apparently in New England about how many times a week you could feed patients in an insane asylum lobster

because it was considered cruel. I believe that because from the research I've done, it's amazing that lobsters are considered some great thing now because they're kind of bottom feeding. I think they're liking to spiders as close to anything, and they'll like cannibalize one another. They're just like really crazy, boy, you dip it in that drawn butter. I know it's tough. I can kiss lobsters goodbye too. All right, so let's

talk about reproduction. I can handle this first part, but I did get confused when it comes to the clitellum fertilization. So so you know, like the band on an earthworm. Well, let's talk about the first part first. Okay, earthworm reproduction you wanted. This is the fact for me. They're simultaneous from aphrodites, all of them. Yeah. I remember that grouper that was in the tank when we swam with the

whale sharks. Do I that's called a sequential hermaphrodite, where like at some point during that grouper's life it changes sex right um, with simultaneous from aphrodites, they have both reproductive organs of male and female for their whole lives, which is pretty cool and another great reason why they have hung around in such vast numbers forever. So what they do if they want to make love is, uh, they do a little New Hampshire Vermont action and line

up opposite head to tail. They excrete all that mucus that we were talking about. They excrete so much of that that they form a little mucous tube that they both get in or they're in. I guess that they used to like rub against one another. Well, the trick is though there encased in this too bright So when they release their semen. It's just rubs around until it finds the semen receptacle right of the other worm. Well obviously, right, yeah,

but yeah, that's exactly right. They rub on one another with their slime tubes and their semens all over their slime tubes and then yeah that they that's how they exchange seminal fluid. So I get all that, but this next part confuses me a little, and I might suggest you rewrite it to make it a little easier really before you publish. Well, I this is this is unedited, so I need to go through it. But um, okay, I'll see if I can explain it. And this has taken um largely from a guy named I think his

name is Jim Conrad. He wrote some pretty good, interesting and very well written books on earthworms, so it's probably trying not to paraphrase or plagiarized him, which is why I'm like, oh, I'll just make it more confusing than he. Um. Basically, you know the band on the earthworm like saying like Cowler, that thick the thickest band, that's the cli tellum. Yeah, um, and uh but in like three or four segments, why

but it's just one segment. So the cli tellum is responsible for creating another band of mucus as slime tube, right, and what that does That carries the eggs. It moves over the earthworm, It moves over the place where the eggs are stored, attaches the eggs to the slime tube um. The slime tube then keeps moving forward across the seminal

receptacle where the other worm sperm is now deposited. So as the slime tube with the eggs attach move over the seminar receptacle, the eggs become fertilized by the other worm sperm. That slime tube from the cli tellum keeps going over the head. And as the worm as it passes all the way over the worm's head, it closes off because it's mucus and forms a cocoon. And now inside that cocoon are fertilized war egs fo to roughly

for like a nightcrawler. It's about four twenty, could be as little as one twenties the highest I've seen um. And then there's little baby wear mags in there that are now fertilized that we'll sit there for like um. I can't remember how many weeks two to three weeks, okay, and then you get a little newborn babies and they can do this every seven to ten days. Yeah, which is yet another reason why they're abundant and surviving well.

Then the other the other point is both worms that are in this mating process can become pregnant or can lay a fertilized cocoon. So there is no such thing as just a male worm or a female orthorm. They're both. They're hermaphroditic. That's pretty awesome. Um, really, that's not the thing come across in this paragraph. Uh, I was slightly confused. I'll rewrite it then, just slightly. Uh, you have to

do it now. I need to make a note to Okay, Uh, their life expectancy, it's pretty impressive to a nightcrawler can live up to twenty years but generally live about six to nine, which is man, that is a long time when you're talking about little tiny things that live underfoot. Yeah, you know, compared to like an insect. I mean, that's pretty amazing. Red wigglers two to five years, gray worms between one point to five and two point six years. Very specific, Well done. That's a mitaki who who came

up with that one. So that's a long time even for the lowly ugly gray worm. Two and two and a half years is pretty pretty good. Yeah. And they actually they have this thing called estivation, which is a

form of hibernation. Yeah. I thought that was really cool too. Um, it's actually more efficient than hibernation, and hibernation like you like a bear that's sleeping, they have to gorge themselves before they hibernate because they're going to be their their metabolic processes are still operating, so they're still using up

fat stores and food stores. With estivation, it's pretty much as close to death as you can come, Like almost all of your body processes just stop, and he's curl up in a little wormy ball, right, Yeah, to keep their mucus supply abundant. So that's the only thing they're doing,

is creating mucus moist Yeah. And the reason they're doing this is because worms definitely have like preferences for like the temperature um and the conditions on the ground the moisture, and when things just don't meet their liking, they estivate. So you can imagine that during the ice age, a lot of worms estivated and died because it didn't get any better for ten thou years. Well, when they they're

cold blooded, but when they freeze, they die. Um, you're talking about their preferences between fifty and humidity, which is why Georgia has lots of worms. Between fifty nine and eighty six degree fahrenheit is about what they like. They can survive, but they're not gonna be as active and thrive and outside this conditions, right, that's like when their most active is between those and Um, they will eat any kind of organic matter. This decaying. But this is

kind of cool. They found out they actually like certain stuff more than others, which is neto. And the way I read it was because they like the taste, or at least that's how I anthropomorpial anthropomorphs species. Uh. In Washington State they prefer maple over oak, and right here in Georgia they prefer clover over grass. That's pretty neat. I got lots of clover in my yard too. They'll eat the tar out of that stuff, especially if you tons of worms. If you pulled it and buried it,

it would be gone like that. I wonder how they do in the clay here. They do very well as a matter of fact, that they are the reason why, well there one reason why any water can perk late through the clay. But man I had clay in my backyard that like was impenetrable. It seemed like worms can. Worms can penetrate it really to a certain extent. Yeah. Um, the one of the so pretty much what Darwin came

up with is that earthworms are extraordinarily helpful. Um, And we'll talk about in a minute, like scientists have come to realize like okay, well there's still an invasive species and as a result, like they it's not all beneficial.

But let's talk about the helpfulness first. One of them is basically burrowing down through dense clay, dense soils and creating places called biopores macro pores basically holes in the ground underneath the ground that let water percolate down to prevent flooding above ground, which also filters that water it does as it goes down to the like the water table. I guess. Yeah, Um, it allows roots to grow more easily, aration plants aerates. Yeah, it brings oxygen down. It basically

makes soil more usable for the stuff above ground. Well, they're just basically little tilling machines. They're moving the earth under there, so you don't have to write. We talked about nitrogen fixing with their castings, where they take about casting poop. Is that right, that's that's a nice word for their poop. Worm castings. Um, And apparently Darwin calculated it in ten years, ten years worth of worm castings would cover an acre of of land about two inches thick.

So if you took all the worm castings produced by a group of worms in an acre in ten years, you have two inches of worm casting. And they and like you said earlier, I think they only take about of the nitrogen for themselves. They're like world, you can have the other seventy and again it's it's any usable form now as a nutrient. Pretty awesome, yeah, um, but it's not all good. No, it's not all good because they eat too well and they are an invasive species.

So because they consume, uh, what do you have here, nine thousand, two hundred and forty pounds or of organic litter for every hectare in eleven weeks. That's too much. Because spiders and lizards and arthropods and snails and frogs and slugs and everything else living down there needs that stuff as well. That's their home, but the worms are taking it for themselves and they give back they well, they definitely do like nitrogen, right, but they're taken too much.

So um. There also that there's that litter horizon, that layer of layer of leaves right above the soil um. There's this the layer that's closest to the soil surface. Um that's at the bottom of this leaf layer is called duff. It's like the sponge, dark organic material that is actually a nice little place for a seed to

safely just state. So without that duff, without it being there long enough for a seed to start to germanate sorry not just eight but german ate um understory plants like smaller plants, saplings, plants that aren't gonna grow as big as trees in a woodland um are they have trouble taking hold. And actually you can see photos side by side on the Internet of like without worms with worms, and like the difference is like just this waste land.

Like with worms, it's missing all sorts of little plants that you see should be there but aren't because the worms are eating their habitat. Actually, like it can reduce the understory canopy between like twenty five and the presence of earthworms can because they eat so much so fast that not enough leaf litters falling to keep the worms happy and a seedlings to grow or keep a place

for spiders to live, that kind of thing. Well, and not just spiders, But that works this way all the way up to chain, because you're gonna have mammals, larger mammals that are gonna want to eat vegetables and leaves, and if they're not there, then they're gonna be in trouble, and then we're in trouble. Yeah, what about the deer? Where are we gonna go without deer? I go to the chicken the section of my grocery store. Everything works out. You eat chicken instead of deer. I don't need I

don't needt deer. I don't I mean against it. I just don't come upon it that much. Yeah, you have to go to like one of those um processing places out in the country. They always have like deer for sale. They are also contributing to global warming in a way because they are admitting a lots of carbon as they they go through all this organic matter that's gonna some of some of the carbon is gonna be released there or some of us going to be released as carbon.

And they have a stat here from Colgate University twenty what are they New York toothbrushis um They contribute as much as an additional of carbon released from the soil, So that's substantial. But there are other studies that show that actually depending on where you are, Like, uh, that Colgate was a North American study, they found that like in Malaysia or Vietnam, like, they're actually better. They actually locked carbon into the soil. So it really depends on

where they are. But they're not an invasive species in that study in Vietnam they were native. But at the end of the day, they do a lot more good here in North America than bad. Right, probably depending on whether you're a spider or a small shrub that lives in the woodland. What if you're human? If you're a human, yeah, you love the worm. Yeah. I have a couple of additional little fat X. The biggest worm. I know you've found some in Japan, but the Australian Jipsland earthworm I

saw twelve feet long, two pounds. Wow, it's a lot of worm. And what was the japan one? Was that just another giant earthworm? There's just a bunch of like I think, because Japan has been a culture for so long, there's just been a lot of reports on record of giant earthworms found by farmers, so they had a lot of stories. It's worth googling giant earthworms because people have these things wrapped around their neck and stuff, and it's

just this big, mindless worm. Like, No, they're not aggressive like they're depicted in tremors, but they're still like, uh, they can eat their weight every day. I saw that. That's a good one. They are able to move forwards and backwards, but they like moving forwards. Yeah, okay, and I didn't know this. If the soil dries up, some of them can actually lose their cletellum, but once they get moist again, it can come back. So that's another

survival adaptation. I guess. It's very cool. Pretty cool. So you got anything else? Do you ever eat them? How to eat fried worms? I never did. I don't think if I did, I've blocked it out of my memory because I don't recall eating. Or if I haven't, it wasn't they weren't it wouldn't have been fried. It would have been like somebody who was like, youre eat this right, yeah? Worm sushi? Yeah, but no I haven't. That was a great book, though, Did you read that? Sure? Oh? Sure? Classic?

Wasn't it like Judy Bloom? No? It was. I think it was written by a man and they made a movie about it. I never saw them. I didn't either. There's no way I was gonna spoil that childhood memory. It's a good thing and check. All right, Well, if you want to learn more about earthworms, probably wait a couple of weeks and then go see the edited published version, the better version that includes the fact that they can

move forward and backwards about earthworms. Just type in earth forms in a couple of weeks at the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. This is an email before we do the email that we have a a quick announcement. We get messages from our fans from time to time around the holidays that

are suffering in some form or another. Because although the holidays are a great time of the year for for most folks, sometimes it's a very sad time of year for others, and uh, we just want to say generally that we're thinking about you guys. Every time we get one of these emails, we reply and it's it's you know, it's very sad and we wish it was more we could do. But we were thinking about either in the holidays, and we hope everyone out there and this stuff you

should know Army is uh is hanging in there. Check. That was very nice of you know. So onto the email, I'm gonna call this sharpa overdue sharp at email from graces Hey, guys and Jerry using it as a collective, she points out. I know this is a while back, but I actually met a sherpa. He's a kid who went to my school for a little while, and he was totally cool with me asking him a thousand and

one questions. He thought it was cool that I knew some information, and when I told him about your podcast episode, he wanted to listen to some of it. But before I give you his feedback, here's his story. Until he was five, he lived in a village near Mount Everest, but not so close that he ever got a good look at it. I couldn't imagine he was that near, And then I would think you have to be really really near it to not get a good look at Oh, maybe that was the case. He was so close it

was just like a wall, a wall of rock. Uh. And she says, even if he did get a good look at it, he was only five, so he may not remember it. He had to leave his village though, because they were threatened by the maoists, so he moved to a city as a refugee. Uh. And he lived there until last year. From what I understand, they were still under the threat from malice, so they came to America as a refugee. Ill Um. Here's his little additional effects as the plural of Sherpa is Sherpa's So we

were right cool. You pronounced the region Solu Kumbo correctly, and he was very excited about that. And he said, there are a lot of potatoes. Now, remember we they started growing potatoes at a certain point and that's the bumper crop. I guess. So that's all he heard of the podcast, only about five minutes of it. He didn't uh. Grace didn't want to make him listen to the whole thing because she felt like he already knew most of the stuff and she didn't want him for him, so uh,

he was excited about it. She was excited about it, and she just wants to say thanks for reading this on the year, and that is from Grace. Thanks a lot, Greig. Thank you to your Sherpa friend too for supporting us. And welcome to America, Sherpa boy, and good luck here. Um wow, Chuck here just spreading glad tidings all over the place. Aren't you a great joy? Um? If you wanna spread glad tidings to us or to anybody else through us, you can send us an email at stuff

podcast at how stuff works dot com. For moral this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you