Mask worm would certainly have a hard time winning a popularity contest. For thousands of years the term "mask" has been a contempt. An old composer once said: "I am a mask and not a man, a mockery of the people and contemptible for the people". Despite the low estimate in which it can be stored, earthworms play a very beneficial role in sustaining life on this planet.
There are over 1,800 different earthworms. Some come from the Andes at altitudes of 4,572 meters or more. Others go about their daily business in the mud, 55 meters under a lake. These creatures can also be found in compost piles.
Earthworms are very different in size. A guy is about an inch long when contracted. However, there is an Australian variety that can be 0.9-1.2 meters in length when fully contracted. And when it spreads, one of these giant worms can be 3 to 3.7 meters long.
And the color? You may be familiar with the often reddish brown worm. But there are also varieties of green, purple and off-white.
A closer look at a common strain
The length of a normal worm is about 25 centimeters. It consists of about 120 (or up to 150) cylindrical segments. If any of these segments are lost, possibly because they were captured by a bird, they will regenerate. However, this regeneration has limits. Therefore, if you cut a worm in half, it will not create two separate worms. Each segment, except the first and last, is equipped with eight brushes called "mushrooms". With the help of these bristles, earthworms can easily cling to the ground they crawl into. The longitudinal muscles of this creature allow it to contract or stretch. Circular muscles allow you to contract or expand your tubular body. Five pairs of hearts are part of the earthworm's circulatory system.
Unlike many other creatures, earthworms do not have eyes, ears, lungs, or gills. How are you doing without this valuable equipment? The skin has cells sensitive to light. Therefore, when earthworms are exposed to strong light, they quickly retreat to their underground area in the dark. With a strong sense of touch, it can detect even the slightest vibration, including the movement of a mouse or bird. The creature breathes through the skin.
The reproduction of earthworms differs from that of many other animals. Each earthworm is male and female. However, another earthworm is needed for fertilization. The pairing process takes three to four hours. During this time, the sperm are exchanged. The worms separate and form cocoons; the cocoon advances and collects the eggs in segment 14; In segments 9 and 10, it collects the sperm deposited by the second worm. The cocoon slides over the head and fertilization occurs. Within 24 hours of the worms mating, the cocoon settles in the soil.
The earthworm's main feed is dead plant material. Much of this comes from near the opening in your building. Other foods are extracted from the soil eaten during the digging process. The mouth acts as a suction pump and absorbs everything in the creature's path. Soil and sand pass through the esophagus for a hard-skinned culture. The gravel from the harvest, together with digestive juices, turns what is eaten into pasta. The organic material is melted and the rest passes through the mask and is thrown underground or on the surface.
What is the benefit of earthworm activity? The caves improve the aeration of the soil and facilitate the passage of water through the soil. Its forms are easily combined with organic waste to form humus and make the soil more fertile. As for the composition of the worm molds, gardening and organic farming report, "If the worm molds are compared to the top 6-inch soil layer (like your soil), we find that they are there: five times more nitrogenous, nitrogen, twice as rich in exchangeable calcium. , two and a half times as rich in exchangeable magnesium, seven times as rich in available phosphorus and eleven times as rich in exchangeable potassium.
Experiments with earthworms showed that their presence significantly increases agricultural production. An earthworm directs the equivalent to its own weight through the digestive tract every day. When you consider that thousands of earthworms do this on just one acre of agricultural land, a lot of land is built. It is estimated that 10 to 15 tons of land per acre per year and many times more are taken up to the surface by worms in rich pastures.
Demonstration projects have shown that earthworms can do wonders for areas or materials that would not otherwise be needed. Earthworms transformed the city's waste into valuable fertilizers and made depleted wheat fields productive. We can collect a few tons of crushed waste, plow it in worn soil and twist fig worms with five or ten worms per square meter, and in four months we have several centimeters of the richest, darkest potted plant you have ever seen.
In fact, the worm is an extremely useful servant.
It’s important to have such living things in our soil