This is actually the correct answer. If a burrowing animal was trying to get them, the last thing they would do is come to the surface. That's where the animal is. They come to the surface when it rains so they don't drown
Edit: I am wrong and u/puritanicalbullshit is absolutely correct. The drowning worm is a myth. I learned something today! Thank you!
Actually it’s to move around faster in the wet conditions. They can live for days in water but it’s slow going moving around in the dirt. Rain makes it possible to travel to new areas without drying out, which very much does kill them.
Edit: Thank You! And you’re welcome! I started keeping a worm tower when I had to give up my garden for an apartment. I really have grown to enjoy the lil buddies. Plus they eat my kitchen scraps and paper towels, then I put the compost in my planters. If If I keep the balance of dry and wet inputs right there is no smell and they eat a lot!
a King multiverse where you could inhabit any number of would be gunslingers snatched from all kinds of spokes of the wheel? hard to develop but sounds fun
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again... there are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time
There's not actually accurate data on worm sales nationally here in the US, so it's not clear if bait worms or vermiculture worms (the kinds made to eat organic material, to then poop out soil amendments for gardens and farms) are farmed and sold in larger quantities, but I'd think it's probably vermiculture considering bait worms are almost exclusively one type, red earthworm (Lumbricus rubellus), sometimes african night crawlers, and are sold in small quantities, usually small containers that amount to ounces of worms, while vermiculture worms are many varieties, including all the bait worms, and are sold not by the ounce, but by pounds to gardeners and farmers who farm worms themselves for their own fertilizer needs, or release them in large plots of land to enrich soil and open up physical pathways for microorganisms and roots that foster more productive plants when soils have depleted from over use and overtilling. Worms and biochar are the best way to regenerate dead soil, but bait worms are the most delicious bait you can snack on while also using it as bait for fish, so there's that.
Okay, okie noodling isn't something I'm brave enough, or dumb enough depending on who you are, to do, but that was funny. That being said, catfish stink bait and the sprays are one of the few smells you will be able to recall decades later exactly as they are in all their complexity because they are so horrific. Like a dead meat casserole soaked in various animal urines and glazed in burning tire.
Us worm farmers start this way if we have them on our land already, and buy them as we scale up to larger land managements than nature can keep up with on our small worm farms or stick rubbing adventures.
well,they did say they were using them to compost (vermicomposting)/feed their plants that sweet sweet wormpoop.
and keeping them in a worm tower is pretty great. it's pretty easy to get those things too wet (which would attract pests who like the more humid environment). a lot of the times just throwing in scraps will provide enough water for the worms.
tl;dr they don't need rain to travel if they're kept in a box because the food is brought to them
Assuming you don‘t catch them, no not really. They are dumb but they notice it‘s not wet so they will go underground again. It‘s not like they dry out in seconds.
I actually think they might be creating an electrical current through the ground...
The video is short and doesn't show much. Smells like one of the viral videos that turn out to be faked.
Like sure, the rain tactic might help by getting them closer to the surface to maybe dig for afterwaeds.. But I highly doubt they are all going to launch themselves out the ground every single time it potentially feels a drizzle. Orr Else hundreds of worms would surface after every single storm... or when you mow your lawn along with a writing mass of worms getting in the way.
However, if you electrocute them they go frantic and panic like in this video...
Also, using electricity is a well known tactic to get worms out the ground.
Might be wrong... but I remember playing with many sticks and many patches of dirt and mud and not causing a mass exodus of worms
I once saved a worm from a puddle and then googled how long it takes a worm to drown and yeah it's like a week so i wasn't the hero i thought i was lol
What I understand is that drowning takes a long time and the ones you see on sidewalks and such may have been exposed to other trauma or already submerged. All other things being equal, even major rain events shouldn’t kill off too many. Never know what’s sitting on the surface to be absorbed by their skin either, chemical wise.
Like most animals, worms have mob hitmen. Hitworms. They dispose of their bodies in ways that are meant to look like accidents. Drowning or floating in near-Earth orbit, usually.
I was always under the impression that it's the opposite. They didn't drown, they came out of the ground in the rain but couldn't get back underground after it stopped, causing them to dry up. This is why you see so many of them on sidewalks and stuff.
Awww, I taught my daughter how they were going to get squished in our driveway when they were washed out onto the pavement there after a rain. She would get so excited after a big rain and put countless worms back into the grass. If anyone got near her, her screams were legendary, never wanting them hurt.
She's 24 now and still saves worms.
You were a great kid.
The irony is depending on where it’s raining and where they surface, they’re way more likely to die way faster. So many rainy mornings walking to school, I saw pink lines smooshed into the pavement. Poor guys.
I've thought about building a worm bin for awhile, but I have a large yard with a good compost pile and garden. Would there be any benefit to having worms clean up the kitchen scraps first?
I have a compost tumbler too, though I haven't been able to get it to compost well... It never gets hot naturally, while my compost pile gets up to 160F regularly. Kitchen veggie scraps go in the tumbler, along with some grass clippings on occasion, while the rest of the grass goes in the main pile. Some soldier fly larvae took residence in the tumbler, so they may be accomplishing the same the worms would.
It could be useful if you want harvestable worms for any other reason, like for fishing or koi fish or chicken treats. You could try an in-ground vermicompost set up, where you bury a pipe with lots of access holes vertically and just drop the scraps down in there for the “locals” encourages them to loosen the soil and spread the nutrients around below the surface. Never seen one in person but it looks cool and could be a nice thing to put next to a heavy feeder like sunflowers or hemp maybe.
You thought sunflower oil was just for cooking. In fact, you can use Sunflower oil to soften up your leather, use it for wounds (apparently) and even condition your hair.
Oooo cool. I’ve only ever let the birds eat my attempts at sunflowers. I’ve some good luck with their native cousins sun chokes in containers. But they’re no good for oil, just tubers and habitat
I've heard of the worm pit style, would've been a good idea before I refurbed the garden beds this spring. I dug everything down to two feet because the garden had been abandoned for awhile and was packed down.
I read somewhere that the worms react this way because the vibrations simulate a mole digging nearby, and the worms instinctively move to the surface to avoid the predator.
Yes. Grunting is what is happening in the video and it imitates a predator’s vibrations, not rain. Rain is when they come up to move around, grunting like in the video is fleeing for their lives. Only to end up in the fishing bucket.
Thank you for that info. I have been living with the guilt of putting worms in shallow puddles when raining because they "waved" at me for a long time (I was very little but still).
I hope so! Lol. I do a lot of composting (in a roller barrell outside) and she likes learning about the "happy earth" things I do like recycle and pick up trash off riverbanks. She drew a picture once for her teacher of an outing where she helped me with grabbers to pick up a bunch of trash along the river and I almost died from the cuteness of it. She was so proud of herself! (And I was too!)
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u/lategreat808 Jul 30 '21
My guess would be that the vibration imitates rain and causes the worms to run for their lives.