Here are some amazing facts for worm farm enthusiasts that can help a lot in getting to know more about the lowly creature.
So here are some amazing facts worth sharing.
Earthworms breathe through their skin and although an earthworm looks as simple as it is, it is a complex creature that with five hearts making up an astounding yet fully functional circulatory system, calciferous glands for neutralizing and digesting food.
Aside from that, it also has a saddle secreting mucus for egg capsules, a brain- although miniscule- and a central nervous system, hundreds of similar organs like the kidneys.
It has the organs of both a male and a female which allows it to reproduce on its own, a crop and gizzard with coarse sand matter to aid in grinding food.
Worm tea, the other politically-correct name for worm urine and castings or worm manure, make good fertilizers and best used for fattening garden ornamental plants or veretables.
Better believe it, but without the help of worms aiding in the decomposition process, every dead plant or animal would remain at the same state that it died over time.
Withered plants and leaves, as well as the carcasses of dead animals or even leftover or wasted food would just pile up and just add up to unkempt clutter.
The largest earthworm known to man was found in South Africa and measured an unbelievable 22 feet from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail.
Worms can grow a new tail, regardless of the number of times it gets cut off and it can even food equal to it’s weight and may even be made to eat more given the desired conditions.
Aside from his theory on evolution, the scientist Charles Darwin studied worms for almost 40 years, saying that, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals in the world which have played so important a part in the history of the world….”
Worms have been around for 120 million years, without much change in their anatomy.
In the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, even Cleopatra regarded worms as sacred.
Worms are indeed complex and, figuratively speaking, are highly sensitive creatures that can feel vibrations on the ground.
Earthworms are made up of at least 150 muscular round segments and there are more than 4,000 worm species with over 2,500 varieties.
There can be as much as a million or more worms in a single acre eating no less than 10 tons of withered leaves, roots, branches and stems and turning no less than 45 tons of soil a year.
When food and garden waste is dumped to a garbage landfill,?organic nutrients that result from decomposition play a key part with today’s environmental problems from water pollution to the production of deadly greenhouse gasses.
More than half of all household garbage is leftover food and garden waste, thus, the practicality and cost-effectiveness of composting these organize wastes and worm farming are alternative options to producing homemade organic fertilizers.
Most composting worms that are usually used for worm farms do not have eyes, but are keen creatures that can sense vibrations, light and varying temperatures through specially-made and unique organs found in their skin.
If worms don’t like the conditions around them be it the temperature or the built-up moisture in the worm boxes, they will attempt to leave the area and look for another habitat and if they don’t find a new home in a different or suitable composted material, they die on their own.
Worm population in a well-maintained worm farm will double every 2-3 months and given the right conditions, adult worms can produce up to 12 offspring per week.
So, there we have it, some of the more amazing facts for worm enthusiasts.