July 9, 2013 • 28 mins
Grunting the Conqueror Worm: Behold the conqueror earthworm, a creature introduced to North America mere centuries ago and now virtually unstoppable. And yet some humans know the means of summoning these worms from the Earth using only music or the rhythmic rubbing of stakes. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Julie take you inside the world of worm grunting.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
when you were in school, did you ever dissect earthworms? No,
but as a youngster, I would sit around with my
(00:23):
friends and I would pluck them from the ground and
then we would cut them in half. Why why. I
think the idea was that we would double our profits
if we sold them to fishermen. I don't even know
that we actually It's like Land of a Million Lakes
or something up there, right, something like that. So, so
there were a lot of fishermen, and in the area
(00:45):
there are a lot of there was a lot of
fishing going on, and they were dimwitted enough to buy
hesy worms from from children. I don't know that we
actually sold them, but this was sort of our version
of the lemonade stand that really never came to fruition.
I think it was just about cutting them. And have
to be quite honest, were you going like lengthwise or umb?
Oh no, no, like not down the middle, just across
(01:07):
the body, because when we would cut them open and
and certainly I grew up at times, you know, in
the countryside and on Kentucky lakes. So I have slain
many a worm on a hook. Uh generally didn't catch anything,
but I but I've I've I've engaged in that kind
of barbaric behavior myself. And uh and in in high school,
I definitely remember dissecting them where you had to they
(01:31):
give you the worm that's been like, you know, drenched
and preserved and fluid, and then you have to just
slit it down the middle and then peel it back
and uh and pin it's it's hide and then go
in there and pinpoint the different organisms. Uh. So when
we were putting this episode together, was looking at the
at the drawings of the inside of the Earth Forum,
and it is bringing back memories and like, I remember
(01:53):
that and I and I also remember the harsh chemical
stink of the whole thing that I do remember, but
I may be associated it with frogs. Oh, it's probably
the same smell because they're both preserved in the same
the same liquids. But yeah, to see all that split out,
you get to see the glorious entrails, the circulatory system,
respiratory system, and it's very cool. To see all of
that or know that all that is packed into this tiny, little, wriggling,
(02:16):
slime malicious tube emerging from the ground. Yeah, so did
you like worms? Did you? Or did? What was your
relationship with him? You just enjoyed cutting them up? I
mean I'm gonna say enjoyed because I see what's going
on here, you frying ants, cutting up worms. Next thing
you know, I'm a serial killer. No, No, we've discussed before.
(02:38):
A lot of this is just you testing your boundaries.
Which which living creatures can you cut in half and
get away with it? And which ones can you not?
And we all have to find that that that thin
gray line for ourselves. Yeah. Look, I had the that
sort of idealized upbringing, you know, out in the Michigan countryside,
playing with mud pies and tearing apart worms. That's all
(02:58):
I can say about it. Well, that tend to go
with your hand in hand because you're making the mud
pies you get in the ground, wet worms are coming up.
Next thing you know, this has happening, and you're singing
the Hers song. Are you familiar worms? Yes? Yeah, the
worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. They play peanutle
on your snout. Scalp right there, scalp. Maybe it's an
(03:19):
alternate version. Yeah. Well, anyway, so if you haven't guessed,
in this episode we were talking about earthworms, Um, we're
gonna take you through the basic anatomy of the earthworm,
just to refresh your mind. If it's been a while
since you've you've wormed a hook or cut one open
in a classroom. Then we're gonna talk about some more
interesting things. We're going to the the earthworm about. It's uh,
(03:41):
it's it's conquering of North America and uh, and also
a little something called worm grunting that I was not
familiar with until just the other week, and then in
total amazement on and you wrote a great blog post
about it with an accompanying YouTube clip which is wonderful, Yes, wonderful,
wacky and very British, so yes, so so that the
Brits out there already know what I'm talking about. But
(04:03):
hang with us. We will get to that as well. Uh.
Before we get we get into the anatomy of the earthworm.
I do want to point out something and make a
call back to a previous episode. Um, the last common
ancestor of earthworm in Man existed about six million years ago. Uh.
But if you just focus on the digestive system, we're
not all that different. If you remember from our our
(04:25):
several parts series where we we went through the human anatomy,
and we mentioned Mary Roaches book Gold if she has
a point where she points out that humans are quote
basically a highly evolved earthworm surrounded surrounding the intestinal tract.
And uh, and so I think that's something that one
of the reasons we find earthworms so fascinating and sometimes
a little horrifying, and also of course when we we
(04:48):
cut them open in science classes, because it's a very
simple model, it's very inhuman. But but but had its roots,
has a lot in common with us. It's true. I'm
glad that you point that out, because it really is
sort of, um, we are sort of these glorified earthworms
with heads and shoes on. Right. Um, alright, so let's
talk about these earthworms. They are classified in the phylum Analyta,
(05:10):
or innalids. They are mauve colored, as I said, slime
malicious tubes. They're found in Europe, North America, and Western Asia.
You can spot them probably in your local garden and
they are used of course on fishing lines for bait,
but their main occupation is as underground farmers. Yes, yeah,
they're there are bervores. They live up to six years
(05:32):
uh in size. You'll see them get up to a
fourteen inches in length or thirty Wait you choose to
weigh such things up to a point nine ounces or
eleven point two grams. You know. I have read that
there is um a particular kind of earthworm in South
America can grow up to eight feet long. We're talking
about two point four meters in weigh over a pound.
(05:54):
You need a bigger hook for that. And of course
their bodies are made up of ring like segments called annuli,
and these segments are covered in a seat or you know,
basically small bristles which the worm uses to move and burrow.
If you ever saw the movie Tremmors with the monster worm,
which takes a lot of different aspects of biological peculiarity
(06:19):
and can combines them into one monster. But they also
point out that the monster in that moves through the ground,
or supposedly does, in the same way that an earth
worm does. So these little bristles, uh, you know, frantically
pulling it through the earth. Yeah, because ultimately those segments
have to move independently of the entire body, or else
it probably would never get anywhere. And it's pretty slow
moving as it is. Yeah, and uh, she comes to
(06:41):
no surprise to anyone that on the front portion of
the of the worm you have a mouth. On the
final segment you have an anis. And as they burrow through,
they consume soil, They extract nutrients from decaying organic matter
like leaves and roots and uh. In doing this, an
earthworm can eat up to one third its body weight
a single day. And they also consume organic matter like
(07:04):
dead animals. Um. And in their gizzards this is the
place where everything kind of gets blendered up. They actually
consume some stones and some sand granules which helped to
break down that matter. UM. So I think that's pretty
fascinating if you think about that. Um. And then of
course the result is something called castings. This is what
comes out of the anus, and it contains a lot
(07:26):
of nutrients that plants can use. And some people even
use these earthworm castings as garden fertilizer. Yeah. So there
they are important to the soil. They transport soil nutrients
and minerals from the surface from below to the surface, uh,
via the waist, and their tunnels actually aerate the soil
as well, so right, so they really enrich that soil.
(07:48):
And UM, I did want to point out that that
earthworms kind of fall into a couple of groups in
terms of where they live. Um. They some of them
live just above the ground, and they kind of squirm
in or just below the plant letter. Now this is
these are all those leaves and twigs and bark that
are on the forest floor, and those are thorms feed
on leaves and the fun guy in the bacteria, and
(08:09):
they helped to break all that down. And then some
live higher up in trees. I did not know this
um inside the king wood or piles of plant material
that gather between limbs. So if you are frightened of worms,
just imagine taking and nicely surely walk through the forest
and looking up and knowing that they're dripping above your head. Um.
And then of course you have those that are traveling
(08:31):
through the layership soil, which is what we kind of
think of when we think of earthworms. And then as
you said, those that burrow really deeply down and can
burrow down as deep as six ft underground cool and
another just tell you know. I'm not going to spend
too much time with the rest of the worms anatomy.
But there is that tail tale little thick portion ye
that looks like a larger segment and and bulges a
(08:53):
little bit, and that is the sill tell them, and
that is uh. That has to do with the mating.
And basically what happened here is their hemacroditic much like
our friends the slugs, they can't self fertilize. They cannot
self fertilize, so they're not like truly you know, a
sexual in that sense. But following a mating worm forms
a tiny little cocoon out of a liquid secreted from
(09:15):
the clyde tell um uh, and the spermon eggs are
deposited inside this cocoon. It's buried, and about two to
four week weeks later, baby worms crawl out. So there
you have it, the magic of life. And they do
their their reproduction thing on the top of the fool.
By the way, so a lot of times earthworms are
referred to as nightcrawlers because they come out at night
(09:36):
to feed but also to reproduce. Yes, all right, so
you're probably saying okay, well we already knew all of that,
Robert and Julie. That's that's just common worm sense, right there. Uh,
let's get to the mind blowing stuff. Yeah. Yeah, enough
about me trampling on them at night during their their
love mating times. I know that their foot, sure, why not? Okay?
(09:57):
What what did the earth look like before? Um? These
guys were widespread? How have they changed the soil of
our earth? Yeah? I mean specifically North America? When at
least North America provides a really good example of this. Um.
And this is the explored in greater detail in Charles C.
Man's two books, the first one New Revelations of the
(10:20):
America's Before Columbus and Uncovering the New World Columbus created. UM.
You can also find his an article about this titled
America Found and Lost, where he goes specifically into some
of what we're talking about here today. Basically, the idea
here is that you can more or less attribute earthworms
in North America to a single dude, and that dude
(10:43):
is John Rolfe, who is also generally most well known
as the dude who married Pocahonas. Yeah, and this is
all taking place around Jamestown. Jamestown was found in sixteen
o seven and it was a just a bad place overall, uh,
foul place, bad water, mosquitoes, eventually malaria, famine, people eating
(11:06):
all their livestock up, uh digging up their own dead.
One case of a man allegedly killing his pregnant wife
insulting her meat um at tension with the local um
Pooton tribes people. It was. It was a pretty bad
uh pad the little corner of history there. But more
to the point, there were no earthworms at the time. UM.
(11:28):
The hardwood forests of New England and the Upper Midwest
UM have no native earthworms. They were apparently all wiped
out in the last ice age years ago. Yeah, so
you're talking about the earthworms eating up all the leaf litter.
While there are no earthworms up the leaf litter, the
leaf litter ends up just piling up. So you have
a rather different ecosystem. But then what happens you have
(11:50):
you have a colonists coming over like Rolf and what
are they bringing. They're bringing um there, they're bringing everything.
They're bringing their agricultural lifestyle else with them. They're bringing
their investigated animals, their plants, they're bringing tobacco plants that
have earthworms in the root ball. Uh. And also when
once they actually start successfully growing tobacco in the New World,
(12:11):
they want to bring it back to market in Europe.
So you know, in order to keep the ship from
riding too high in the waters, they have to, uh,
they have to to weigh it down. When they weigh
it down with the way it down with shipments of earth,
and that earth has earth worms in it, and so
they when they get to the New World, they just
dump that earth right so they can make room for
the tobacco exactly add its weight in tobacco. But then
(12:33):
you have all this dirt and with the in these
worms introduced to this new world. So what you're saying
here is it's kind of like terra forming. Yeah really, um,
I mean, man does an excellent job just just talking
about just how many factors are involved. There's one wonderful
little part partner I'm gonna read here where he really
sums in not not even specifically the worms or even
(12:56):
or even rolf here, but just the the overall movement
of people in their their things and how it changes
the world. He says two hundred and fifty million years ago,
the world contained a single land mass mass known to
scientists as Pangaea. Geologic forces broke this vast expanse into
into pieces, sundering Eurasia and the America's. Over time, the
(13:16):
two halves of the world developed widely different suites of
plants and animals. Columbus's signal accomplishment was, in the phrase
of historian Alfred Crosby, to re knit the torn seams
of Pangaea. So uh, I mean, the more you think
about it, like he points out that a lot of
these crops, a lot of these these signature dishes that
(13:36):
we we take for granted. You think about tomatoes in Italy, well,
it's because they moved there from somewhere else. They were
taken there by humans. Oranges in Florida, chocolates and Switzerland,
and of course hot peppers, and so many different culinary traditions,
like I point out Thai food. And this was something
I remember reading about when travel there years ago, is
that you know all these signature hot, spicy thie dishes. Uh.
(14:00):
Thai cuisine was a dramatically different thing before the Portuguese
arrived and brought these aliens of species and so that's
what you have going on in North America. You have
these alien humans bringing their alien species in an alien
way of working the land and using it, and it
just changes everything. And the earthworm is a huge part
of that because now the earthworm is is just all
(14:21):
over this huge segment of North America and uh, and
they're thriving there. They're they're in no danger of disappearing.
And that's true. They become invasive, right and even though
they're slow moving, it does take, you know, a couple
hundred years before people begin to realize what sort of
effect they're having. Because they are spreading, they're getting a foothold.
And a good example of this is the Chippewa National
(14:43):
Forest and this is in Minnesota, and they noticed that
the landscape was really changing dramatically. And so those leaves,
those twigs, the other plant debris. This is called duff
and um. As you had noted, the earthworms like to
munch on that. Well, previous to the earthworms, the was
really broken down by fungi, bacteria might and it was
(15:04):
a refuge for some small birds and animals. And it
also helped that that duff held in the moisture like
a sponge for other plants, and those are like the
middle growth plants of force. So we're talking about wildflowers, shrubs,
and then tree seedlings. So what happens when when the
humble earth firm is unleashed upon this landscape? Will they
(15:26):
began to remove all of that duff and so those
tree seedlings, those those are middle plantings no longer exist
and it changes that habitat for the other animals. And
of course that the problem here is that they're spread
even it's not just you know, a little columbus deposited
a big pile them in dirt and then that was
the end of the story. The story continues because fishermen
(15:46):
use them as baits, so they're introduced into lakes, rivers
and streams, and uh, farmers use them in composting, so
of course they're spread even more around lands that then
began to encroach upon hardwood force. Yeah, and the crazy
thing too about earthworms is that unlike a lot of
invasive species that introduced a lot of these species will well,
(16:08):
they're introduced to an area and then they'll continue to
work themselves. They're more than happy to spread their numbers
across the lands. But but as Man points out, earthworms.
You you introduce earthworms and to say, your backyard, if
your backward yarded for some reason earthworm free, they make
they'll thrive in that that area, but they're not necessarily
going to expand beyond your backyard. They're very local. So
(16:28):
this is all on humans. This is all our again
using them for bait um, transplanting plants from one place
to another, moving soil from one place to another, and
eventually just creating a new nation underworm. You know, that
reminds me two of the anthropa scene episode that we did,
and we talked about how humans have changed the landscape
(16:50):
um so drastically and that we are so responsible more
than any other natural phenomenon for moving massive amounts of
dirt and earth all over the world. So if you
think beyond just even fishermen or you know, gardeners or
farmers using earthworms, you have to realize that any time
(17:11):
that we take dump trucks full of soil and move
them to one other place, than we're introducing earthworms as
an invasive species. Yeah, it's interesting too because Man also
points out that you know, to no one's surprise, uh,
this is this, Uh, this sort of fantasy world idea
of pocahonas and and the settlers doesn't match up with reality.
We tend to think of this idea that they arrive
(17:33):
in the New World and the and everything is just
this lush you know, avatar esque. Um, you know, untouched wilderness.
And then there are a few uh Native Americans moving
around almost unseen, you know, just a seamless part of
the environment. But but as it turns out, the Palatin
tribes people had already really done their part to change
(17:54):
to to to change the environment and keep it the
way they liked it, such as using control burns to
clear out some of that underbrush and then constantly hunting
and gathering to to collect you know, the items that
they depended on for their diets. All right, so now
we have an idea of these suckers as a as
an invasive species. Have the conqueror worm, the conquering worm.
(18:16):
What about just what about this worm grunting thing? Well,
you know, we should take a break. We'll take a
break before we get to the worm grunting. But stay
with us, because when we come back, um, humans and
non humans alike will call to the worm, and the
worm shall rise up from the drought. All right, we're
(18:44):
back and we are talking about worm grunting, also known
but by a few other names that you may know
u the worm grunter as a worm charmer. You may
know him or her as a worm fiddler. You may
know this is worm snoring, But in Florida at least,
it's called worm grunting. And you can in fact find
this pastime throughout the southeastern United States and even in
(19:07):
the United Kingdom. Had you ever heard of worm grunting before?
I had not, But I think it's fascinating because we're
talking about here is driving a wooden steak into the
ground and then taking a flat metal rod across the
top of it and creating a sort of bull frog
like grunting sound which emanates from this. Yeah, and just
(19:33):
that you have to imagine this setting, like here's this uh,
this woodsy Floridian going out and into the into the wilderness.
They're pounding the steak home and they're just sitting there
moving the grunt and stick back and forth and then
waiting for the worms to crawl up. It's true, like
a minute or so later, depending on the sort of
sound spectra that you create. Yeah, these worms emerge from
(19:54):
the ground and and it's a rooping iron. By the way,
I should point out that's that's the thing that they
move across the state iron. Yeah, okay, So what's cool
about this is that it's that sounds spectra that's made
that shares a similarity with burrowing moles. We have found, yes,
(20:15):
because for a lot of the worm grunters and the
worm charmers elsewhere, they didn't necessarily understand the science of it.
Because you don't really have to understand why the worms
are crawling up. You realize that they're doing it, and
then you want to get in on the action. And
in fact, the two examples of worm grunters in in
in nature that don't understand the science of what they're doing.
(20:35):
The wood turtle and some seagulls. Goals and wood turtles
also use worm grunting. The turtle especially is adorable doing
this because the turtle kind of does a little dance
on the ground and does the dance just right, and
then the worms come up and then he eats the worms.
And likewise the seagull that's the same thing. But what
is this what is the reason for it? Right? Well,
(20:56):
the you know, the worm grunters of old might have
maybe thought it was magic. There was one theory at
one point that it was the idea that the grunting,
the tapping, or whatever kind of sounds you're making on
the soil, that they somehow sound like rain drops falling,
and the and the worms think, oh, the rain is coming.
I need to get the higher ground so I don't
drown in the earth, which you know, we see this sometimes, right,
(21:18):
there's a good rainfall and then a couple of worms appear.
But this, it turns out, is not actual reason why
worms will rise to the top when you make these
certain vibrations in the soil. Yeah, And in two thousand
and eight, biologists kin A Catania and he set out
to look into this. So he went out, he did
did a full on scientific investigation, and he found that
(21:40):
the reason is, like you said, moles. So the mole
in earthworm lore, of course, is the worm gobbler part excellence.
He's the he's the the greatest foe. He is the
the ultimate enemy of worms. Yeah, no doubt, Like he
is the Boogeyman. And worm folklore like they sit down
with the kids and they're like the awful mole is
(22:03):
going to come visit us one day. Yeah, and there's
a lot of bad stuff that can happen to you
if you are an earthworm. Um. Like, these things are plentiful,
but they're also very nutritious, so you know, birds will
not hesitate to eat them, Fishermen will not hesitate to
put them on a hook, um Little Julie's will not
hesitate to slice them up for for fun and possible
profit and uh and so and so. Coming to the
(22:26):
surface carries with it certain risks, but those risks do
not even compare to the risk of staying underground when
a mole is burrowing through the area. So worm grunting uh,
using this a stake in the special rod or some
of the worm charming techniques you see in in England
they have the whole festivals for this every year, and
(22:46):
if you look at the videos, it's just like a
bunch of people going nuts, like hitting the ground with objects,
playing musical instruments. So there are other ways to get
the proper uh, the proper reverberations going in the earth. Uh.
But but the idea is that again, it sounds like
a mole and it's just enough crossover between the frequencies
to to whether the earthworm interprets that is, as a
(23:08):
mole approaching, and so they take to the surface, and
they will take to the surface in the hundreds. We're
not talking like just one or two earthworms. We're talking
about all the earthworms in the vicinity rising at once. Yeah.
And if you doubt this mole earthworm linkum, just consider
that a paper published in Biology Letters showed that recordings,
just the mere recordings of worm grunting vibrations bring worms
(23:31):
to the surface and that more worms will surface nearer
to the source of the vibrations of where those recordings
are being transmitted. Yeah. Catania said that they found that
worm grunting vibrations were more uniform and concentrated near the
eight hurts area, while moles produce a wider range of
vibrations that peak around two h hurts. But there's just
(23:53):
enough overlap between the two to make this practice the reality. Yeah,
and you have to think too, like why would people
do this? Well, you know they probably said, huh, look
look at that turtle over there, just raising raising these worms,
like raising the dead. We could profit from this, we
could do this, We could have a whole field of
these and gather them and then sell them to fishermen. Yeah, exactly.
(24:13):
I mean that's the main reason worm grinners do it.
I mean maybe it's kind of a power trip as well.
You know, things aren't going right in your life, but
at least you can go out into the woods and
hundreds of worms will obey or every command. But yeah, generally,
I guess you would box them up at that pointing
and selling a fisherman. I wanted to point out that
the festival in Florida takes place in stop choppy Florida.
(24:34):
That's a good Florida name right there. I thought it
was great for an earthworm festival. So I was amazed
by this. I just hope everyone else finds this as
fascinating as I do. That there, because I love any
kind of like weird folk traditions that they are just
you know, just seem at first glance to just be
completely mystical and strange, but then they end up having
(24:56):
some sort of a hidden science to them. And I
think we're running as a as a great example of that.
Um Like, I really want to see more of this
in action. I kind of want to try it for myself.
You want to start a festival here in Georgia. Well,
I don't know if I've got that far, but but
if there is an existing um one, I would I
would totally be up for checking it out. All right,
Any fun games for the whole family, Yeah, if anybody
(25:18):
there is organizing one, let us know in the southeast,
that would be all right. Well, I'm gonna read a
quick listener mail then on that note, if the robot
will bring me one, all right. This one comes to
us from Brittany. Brittany writes and and says, an interesting
kidbit to add to your information on sun dial. So
I took a Latin class a couple of years ago
(25:38):
and found out that ancient Romans divided the day daylight
day not full day, into twelve segments based on the
sun dial. The length of the segment change based on
the time of the year, but everyone followed it so
it didn't matter. There you go a little. She's of course,
responding to our clocking in episode where we talked about
the nature of time as well as how we measure
(25:59):
all right, And this one comes to us from John.
John says, Hey, Robert and Julia, I saw this video
and I just had to send to you. Guys. It
blew my mind just how much small things like the
jar in this video can change our perspectives on the
world and other people. I love your podcast and I
hope you keep blowing my mind. And he Since this
video of the statue experiment, it took place on the
high Line in New York. This is that people have
(26:20):
probably seen it on like an episode of Louis Or
or certainly some cool pictures of it where it's a
elevated train track. They turned into a little park and
there's the statue there. Uh. And at first glance, it
looks like a performance artist, you know, like the kind
of people you see, like in the streets New Orleans
who paint themselves like bright silver and then put on
some shades and stand there and wait for tips. But
then you quickly realize it's just a statue. Well, in
(26:41):
this video experiment, they put a tip jar next to
it and and everyone just starts loading the tip jar.
They instantly like like that flips on the switch to
where people decide, oh, I guess it is a person,
and then they are totally reacting to it differently. So
I found that interesting and uh, and certainly now that
we're doing more videos. Really UM always open to receive
(27:01):
some video links from people are really cool, like little
bits of viral video or scientific video that you would
like to have explained because we do this series uh
science on the web where we do that. We take
something like a cat in a shark suit on a
room but chasing a duck and we say, hey, what's
the possible science of the vest and when we started
talking about it? So if you have anything like that
(27:21):
you would like to as send to us, let us
know if you would like to talk to us about worms,
your experience with earth worms, your experiences with worm grunting
or worm charming or whatever you call your worm calling
um tradition in your part of the world, let us
know about it. We would love to hear from you. Uh.
You can find us as always that stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That is our central location, but
(27:44):
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staff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
when you were in school, did you ever dissect earthworms? No,
but as a youngster, I would sit around with my
(00:23):
friends and I would pluck them from the ground and
then we would cut them in half. Why why. I
think the idea was that we would double our profits
if we sold them to fishermen. I don't even know
that we actually It's like Land of a Million Lakes
or something up there, right, something like that. So, so
there were a lot of fishermen, and in the area
(00:45):
there are a lot of there was a lot of
fishing going on, and they were dimwitted enough to buy
hesy worms from from children. I don't know that we
actually sold them, but this was sort of our version
of the lemonade stand that really never came to fruition.
I think it was just about cutting them. And have
to be quite honest, were you going like lengthwise or umb?
Oh no, no, like not down the middle, just across
(01:07):
the body, because when we would cut them open and
and certainly I grew up at times, you know, in
the countryside and on Kentucky lakes. So I have slain
many a worm on a hook. Uh generally didn't catch anything,
but I but I've I've I've engaged in that kind
of barbaric behavior myself. And uh and in in high school,
I definitely remember dissecting them where you had to they
(01:31):
give you the worm that's been like, you know, drenched
and preserved and fluid, and then you have to just
slit it down the middle and then peel it back
and uh and pin it's it's hide and then go
in there and pinpoint the different organisms. Uh. So when
we were putting this episode together, was looking at the
at the drawings of the inside of the Earth Forum,
and it is bringing back memories and like, I remember
(01:53):
that and I and I also remember the harsh chemical
stink of the whole thing that I do remember, but
I may be associated it with frogs. Oh, it's probably
the same smell because they're both preserved in the same
the same liquids. But yeah, to see all that split out,
you get to see the glorious entrails, the circulatory system,
respiratory system, and it's very cool. To see all of
that or know that all that is packed into this tiny, little, wriggling,
(02:16):
slime malicious tube emerging from the ground. Yeah, so did
you like worms? Did you? Or did? What was your
relationship with him? You just enjoyed cutting them up? I
mean I'm gonna say enjoyed because I see what's going
on here, you frying ants, cutting up worms. Next thing
you know, I'm a serial killer. No, No, we've discussed before.
(02:38):
A lot of this is just you testing your boundaries.
Which which living creatures can you cut in half and
get away with it? And which ones can you not?
And we all have to find that that that thin
gray line for ourselves. Yeah. Look, I had the that
sort of idealized upbringing, you know, out in the Michigan countryside,
playing with mud pies and tearing apart worms. That's all
(02:58):
I can say about it. Well, that tend to go
with your hand in hand because you're making the mud
pies you get in the ground, wet worms are coming up.
Next thing you know, this has happening, and you're singing
the Hers song. Are you familiar worms? Yes? Yeah, the
worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. They play peanutle
on your snout. Scalp right there, scalp. Maybe it's an
(03:19):
alternate version. Yeah. Well, anyway, so if you haven't guessed,
in this episode we were talking about earthworms, Um, we're
gonna take you through the basic anatomy of the earthworm,
just to refresh your mind. If it's been a while
since you've you've wormed a hook or cut one open
in a classroom. Then we're gonna talk about some more
interesting things. We're going to the the earthworm about. It's uh,
(03:41):
it's it's conquering of North America and uh, and also
a little something called worm grunting that I was not
familiar with until just the other week, and then in
total amazement on and you wrote a great blog post
about it with an accompanying YouTube clip which is wonderful, Yes, wonderful,
wacky and very British, so yes, so so that the
Brits out there already know what I'm talking about. But
(04:03):
hang with us. We will get to that as well. Uh.
Before we get we get into the anatomy of the earthworm.
I do want to point out something and make a
call back to a previous episode. Um, the last common
ancestor of earthworm in Man existed about six million years ago. Uh.
But if you just focus on the digestive system, we're
not all that different. If you remember from our our
(04:25):
several parts series where we we went through the human anatomy,
and we mentioned Mary Roaches book Gold if she has
a point where she points out that humans are quote
basically a highly evolved earthworm surrounded surrounding the intestinal tract.
And uh, and so I think that's something that one
of the reasons we find earthworms so fascinating and sometimes
a little horrifying, and also of course when we we
(04:48):
cut them open in science classes, because it's a very
simple model, it's very inhuman. But but but had its roots,
has a lot in common with us. It's true. I'm
glad that you point that out, because it really is
sort of, um, we are sort of these glorified earthworms
with heads and shoes on. Right. Um, alright, so let's
talk about these earthworms. They are classified in the phylum Analyta,
(05:10):
or innalids. They are mauve colored, as I said, slime
malicious tubes. They're found in Europe, North America, and Western Asia.
You can spot them probably in your local garden and
they are used of course on fishing lines for bait,
but their main occupation is as underground farmers. Yes, yeah,
they're there are bervores. They live up to six years
(05:32):
uh in size. You'll see them get up to a
fourteen inches in length or thirty Wait you choose to
weigh such things up to a point nine ounces or
eleven point two grams. You know. I have read that
there is um a particular kind of earthworm in South
America can grow up to eight feet long. We're talking
about two point four meters in weigh over a pound.
(05:54):
You need a bigger hook for that. And of course
their bodies are made up of ring like segments called annuli,
and these segments are covered in a seat or you know,
basically small bristles which the worm uses to move and burrow.
If you ever saw the movie Tremmors with the monster worm,
which takes a lot of different aspects of biological peculiarity
(06:19):
and can combines them into one monster. But they also
point out that the monster in that moves through the ground,
or supposedly does, in the same way that an earth
worm does. So these little bristles, uh, you know, frantically
pulling it through the earth. Yeah, because ultimately those segments
have to move independently of the entire body, or else
it probably would never get anywhere. And it's pretty slow
moving as it is. Yeah, and uh, she comes to
(06:41):
no surprise to anyone that on the front portion of
the of the worm you have a mouth. On the
final segment you have an anis. And as they burrow through,
they consume soil, They extract nutrients from decaying organic matter
like leaves and roots and uh. In doing this, an
earthworm can eat up to one third its body weight
a single day. And they also consume organic matter like
(07:04):
dead animals. Um. And in their gizzards this is the
place where everything kind of gets blendered up. They actually
consume some stones and some sand granules which helped to
break down that matter. UM. So I think that's pretty
fascinating if you think about that. Um. And then of
course the result is something called castings. This is what
comes out of the anus, and it contains a lot
(07:26):
of nutrients that plants can use. And some people even
use these earthworm castings as garden fertilizer. Yeah. So there
they are important to the soil. They transport soil nutrients
and minerals from the surface from below to the surface, uh,
via the waist, and their tunnels actually aerate the soil
as well, so right, so they really enrich that soil.
(07:48):
And UM, I did want to point out that that
earthworms kind of fall into a couple of groups in
terms of where they live. Um. They some of them
live just above the ground, and they kind of squirm
in or just below the plant letter. Now this is
these are all those leaves and twigs and bark that
are on the forest floor, and those are thorms feed
on leaves and the fun guy in the bacteria, and
(08:09):
they helped to break all that down. And then some
live higher up in trees. I did not know this
um inside the king wood or piles of plant material
that gather between limbs. So if you are frightened of worms,
just imagine taking and nicely surely walk through the forest
and looking up and knowing that they're dripping above your head. Um.
And then of course you have those that are traveling
(08:31):
through the layership soil, which is what we kind of
think of when we think of earthworms. And then as
you said, those that burrow really deeply down and can
burrow down as deep as six ft underground cool and
another just tell you know. I'm not going to spend
too much time with the rest of the worms anatomy.
But there is that tail tale little thick portion ye
that looks like a larger segment and and bulges a
(08:53):
little bit, and that is the sill tell them, and
that is uh. That has to do with the mating.
And basically what happened here is their hemacroditic much like
our friends the slugs, they can't self fertilize. They cannot
self fertilize, so they're not like truly you know, a
sexual in that sense. But following a mating worm forms
a tiny little cocoon out of a liquid secreted from
(09:15):
the clyde tell um uh, and the spermon eggs are
deposited inside this cocoon. It's buried, and about two to
four week weeks later, baby worms crawl out. So there
you have it, the magic of life. And they do
their their reproduction thing on the top of the fool.
By the way, so a lot of times earthworms are
referred to as nightcrawlers because they come out at night
(09:36):
to feed but also to reproduce. Yes, all right, so
you're probably saying okay, well we already knew all of that,
Robert and Julie. That's that's just common worm sense, right there. Uh,
let's get to the mind blowing stuff. Yeah. Yeah, enough
about me trampling on them at night during their their
love mating times. I know that their foot, sure, why not? Okay?
(09:57):
What what did the earth look like before? Um? These
guys were widespread? How have they changed the soil of
our earth? Yeah? I mean specifically North America? When at
least North America provides a really good example of this. Um.
And this is the explored in greater detail in Charles C.
Man's two books, the first one New Revelations of the
(10:20):
America's Before Columbus and Uncovering the New World Columbus created. UM.
You can also find his an article about this titled
America Found and Lost, where he goes specifically into some
of what we're talking about here today. Basically, the idea
here is that you can more or less attribute earthworms
in North America to a single dude, and that dude
(10:43):
is John Rolfe, who is also generally most well known
as the dude who married Pocahonas. Yeah, and this is
all taking place around Jamestown. Jamestown was found in sixteen
o seven and it was a just a bad place overall, uh,
foul place, bad water, mosquitoes, eventually malaria, famine, people eating
(11:06):
all their livestock up, uh digging up their own dead.
One case of a man allegedly killing his pregnant wife
insulting her meat um at tension with the local um
Pooton tribes people. It was. It was a pretty bad
uh pad the little corner of history there. But more
to the point, there were no earthworms at the time. UM.
(11:28):
The hardwood forests of New England and the Upper Midwest
UM have no native earthworms. They were apparently all wiped
out in the last ice age years ago. Yeah, so
you're talking about the earthworms eating up all the leaf litter.
While there are no earthworms up the leaf litter, the
leaf litter ends up just piling up. So you have
a rather different ecosystem. But then what happens you have
(11:50):
you have a colonists coming over like Rolf and what
are they bringing. They're bringing um there, they're bringing everything.
They're bringing their agricultural lifestyle else with them. They're bringing
their investigated animals, their plants, they're bringing tobacco plants that
have earthworms in the root ball. Uh. And also when
once they actually start successfully growing tobacco in the New World,
(12:11):
they want to bring it back to market in Europe.
So you know, in order to keep the ship from
riding too high in the waters, they have to, uh,
they have to to weigh it down. When they weigh
it down with the way it down with shipments of earth,
and that earth has earth worms in it, and so
they when they get to the New World, they just
dump that earth right so they can make room for
the tobacco exactly add its weight in tobacco. But then
(12:33):
you have all this dirt and with the in these
worms introduced to this new world. So what you're saying
here is it's kind of like terra forming. Yeah really, um,
I mean, man does an excellent job just just talking
about just how many factors are involved. There's one wonderful
little part partner I'm gonna read here where he really
sums in not not even specifically the worms or even
(12:56):
or even rolf here, but just the the overall movement
of people in their their things and how it changes
the world. He says two hundred and fifty million years ago,
the world contained a single land mass mass known to
scientists as Pangaea. Geologic forces broke this vast expanse into
into pieces, sundering Eurasia and the America's. Over time, the
(13:16):
two halves of the world developed widely different suites of
plants and animals. Columbus's signal accomplishment was, in the phrase
of historian Alfred Crosby, to re knit the torn seams
of Pangaea. So uh, I mean, the more you think
about it, like he points out that a lot of
these crops, a lot of these these signature dishes that
(13:36):
we we take for granted. You think about tomatoes in Italy, well,
it's because they moved there from somewhere else. They were
taken there by humans. Oranges in Florida, chocolates and Switzerland,
and of course hot peppers, and so many different culinary traditions,
like I point out Thai food. And this was something
I remember reading about when travel there years ago, is
that you know all these signature hot, spicy thie dishes. Uh.
(14:00):
Thai cuisine was a dramatically different thing before the Portuguese
arrived and brought these aliens of species and so that's
what you have going on in North America. You have
these alien humans bringing their alien species in an alien
way of working the land and using it, and it
just changes everything. And the earthworm is a huge part
of that because now the earthworm is is just all
(14:21):
over this huge segment of North America and uh, and
they're thriving there. They're they're in no danger of disappearing.
And that's true. They become invasive, right and even though
they're slow moving, it does take, you know, a couple
hundred years before people begin to realize what sort of
effect they're having. Because they are spreading, they're getting a foothold.
And a good example of this is the Chippewa National
(14:43):
Forest and this is in Minnesota, and they noticed that
the landscape was really changing dramatically. And so those leaves,
those twigs, the other plant debris. This is called duff
and um. As you had noted, the earthworms like to
munch on that. Well, previous to the earthworms, the was
really broken down by fungi, bacteria might and it was
(15:04):
a refuge for some small birds and animals. And it
also helped that that duff held in the moisture like
a sponge for other plants, and those are like the
middle growth plants of force. So we're talking about wildflowers, shrubs,
and then tree seedlings. So what happens when when the
humble earth firm is unleashed upon this landscape? Will they
(15:26):
began to remove all of that duff and so those
tree seedlings, those those are middle plantings no longer exist
and it changes that habitat for the other animals. And
of course that the problem here is that they're spread
even it's not just you know, a little columbus deposited
a big pile them in dirt and then that was
the end of the story. The story continues because fishermen
(15:46):
use them as baits, so they're introduced into lakes, rivers
and streams, and uh, farmers use them in composting, so
of course they're spread even more around lands that then
began to encroach upon hardwood force. Yeah, and the crazy
thing too about earthworms is that unlike a lot of
invasive species that introduced a lot of these species will well,
(16:08):
they're introduced to an area and then they'll continue to
work themselves. They're more than happy to spread their numbers
across the lands. But but as Man points out, earthworms.
You you introduce earthworms and to say, your backyard, if
your backward yarded for some reason earthworm free, they make
they'll thrive in that that area, but they're not necessarily
going to expand beyond your backyard. They're very local. So
(16:28):
this is all on humans. This is all our again
using them for bait um, transplanting plants from one place
to another, moving soil from one place to another, and
eventually just creating a new nation underworm. You know, that
reminds me two of the anthropa scene episode that we did,
and we talked about how humans have changed the landscape
(16:50):
um so drastically and that we are so responsible more
than any other natural phenomenon for moving massive amounts of
dirt and earth all over the world. So if you
think beyond just even fishermen or you know, gardeners or
farmers using earthworms, you have to realize that any time
(17:11):
that we take dump trucks full of soil and move
them to one other place, than we're introducing earthworms as
an invasive species. Yeah, it's interesting too because Man also
points out that you know, to no one's surprise, uh,
this is this, Uh, this sort of fantasy world idea
of pocahonas and and the settlers doesn't match up with reality.
We tend to think of this idea that they arrive
(17:33):
in the New World and the and everything is just
this lush you know, avatar esque. Um, you know, untouched wilderness.
And then there are a few uh Native Americans moving
around almost unseen, you know, just a seamless part of
the environment. But but as it turns out, the Palatin
tribes people had already really done their part to change
(17:54):
to to to change the environment and keep it the
way they liked it, such as using control burns to
clear out some of that underbrush and then constantly hunting
and gathering to to collect you know, the items that
they depended on for their diets. All right, so now
we have an idea of these suckers as a as
an invasive species. Have the conqueror worm, the conquering worm.
(18:16):
What about just what about this worm grunting thing? Well,
you know, we should take a break. We'll take a
break before we get to the worm grunting. But stay
with us, because when we come back, um, humans and
non humans alike will call to the worm, and the
worm shall rise up from the drought. All right, we're
(18:44):
back and we are talking about worm grunting, also known
but by a few other names that you may know
u the worm grunter as a worm charmer. You may
know him or her as a worm fiddler. You may
know this is worm snoring, But in Florida at least,
it's called worm grunting. And you can in fact find
this pastime throughout the southeastern United States and even in
(19:07):
the United Kingdom. Had you ever heard of worm grunting before?
I had not, But I think it's fascinating because we're
talking about here is driving a wooden steak into the
ground and then taking a flat metal rod across the
top of it and creating a sort of bull frog
like grunting sound which emanates from this. Yeah, and just
(19:33):
that you have to imagine this setting, like here's this uh,
this woodsy Floridian going out and into the into the wilderness.
They're pounding the steak home and they're just sitting there
moving the grunt and stick back and forth and then
waiting for the worms to crawl up. It's true, like
a minute or so later, depending on the sort of
sound spectra that you create. Yeah, these worms emerge from
(19:54):
the ground and and it's a rooping iron. By the way,
I should point out that's that's the thing that they
move across the state iron. Yeah, okay, So what's cool
about this is that it's that sounds spectra that's made
that shares a similarity with burrowing moles. We have found, yes,
(20:15):
because for a lot of the worm grunters and the
worm charmers elsewhere, they didn't necessarily understand the science of it.
Because you don't really have to understand why the worms
are crawling up. You realize that they're doing it, and
then you want to get in on the action. And
in fact, the two examples of worm grunters in in
in nature that don't understand the science of what they're doing.
(20:35):
The wood turtle and some seagulls. Goals and wood turtles
also use worm grunting. The turtle especially is adorable doing
this because the turtle kind of does a little dance
on the ground and does the dance just right, and
then the worms come up and then he eats the worms.
And likewise the seagull that's the same thing. But what
is this what is the reason for it? Right? Well,
(20:56):
the you know, the worm grunters of old might have
maybe thought it was magic. There was one theory at
one point that it was the idea that the grunting,
the tapping, or whatever kind of sounds you're making on
the soil, that they somehow sound like rain drops falling,
and the and the worms think, oh, the rain is coming.
I need to get the higher ground so I don't
drown in the earth, which you know, we see this sometimes, right,
(21:18):
there's a good rainfall and then a couple of worms appear.
But this, it turns out, is not actual reason why
worms will rise to the top when you make these
certain vibrations in the soil. Yeah, And in two thousand
and eight, biologists kin A Catania and he set out
to look into this. So he went out, he did
did a full on scientific investigation, and he found that
(21:40):
the reason is, like you said, moles. So the mole
in earthworm lore, of course, is the worm gobbler part excellence.
He's the he's the the greatest foe. He is the
the ultimate enemy of worms. Yeah, no doubt, Like he
is the Boogeyman. And worm folklore like they sit down
with the kids and they're like the awful mole is
(22:03):
going to come visit us one day. Yeah, and there's
a lot of bad stuff that can happen to you
if you are an earthworm. Um. Like, these things are plentiful,
but they're also very nutritious, so you know, birds will
not hesitate to eat them, Fishermen will not hesitate to
put them on a hook, um Little Julie's will not
hesitate to slice them up for for fun and possible
profit and uh and so and so. Coming to the
(22:26):
surface carries with it certain risks, but those risks do
not even compare to the risk of staying underground when
a mole is burrowing through the area. So worm grunting uh,
using this a stake in the special rod or some
of the worm charming techniques you see in in England
they have the whole festivals for this every year, and
(22:46):
if you look at the videos, it's just like a
bunch of people going nuts, like hitting the ground with objects,
playing musical instruments. So there are other ways to get
the proper uh, the proper reverberations going in the earth. Uh.
But but the idea is that again, it sounds like
a mole and it's just enough crossover between the frequencies
to to whether the earthworm interprets that is, as a
(23:08):
mole approaching, and so they take to the surface, and
they will take to the surface in the hundreds. We're
not talking like just one or two earthworms. We're talking
about all the earthworms in the vicinity rising at once. Yeah.
And if you doubt this mole earthworm linkum, just consider
that a paper published in Biology Letters showed that recordings,
just the mere recordings of worm grunting vibrations bring worms
(23:31):
to the surface and that more worms will surface nearer
to the source of the vibrations of where those recordings
are being transmitted. Yeah. Catania said that they found that
worm grunting vibrations were more uniform and concentrated near the
eight hurts area, while moles produce a wider range of
vibrations that peak around two h hurts. But there's just
(23:53):
enough overlap between the two to make this practice the reality. Yeah,
and you have to think too, like why would people
do this? Well, you know they probably said, huh, look
look at that turtle over there, just raising raising these worms,
like raising the dead. We could profit from this, we
could do this, We could have a whole field of
these and gather them and then sell them to fishermen. Yeah, exactly.
(24:13):
I mean that's the main reason worm grinners do it.
I mean maybe it's kind of a power trip as well.
You know, things aren't going right in your life, but
at least you can go out into the woods and
hundreds of worms will obey or every command. But yeah, generally,
I guess you would box them up at that pointing
and selling a fisherman. I wanted to point out that
the festival in Florida takes place in stop choppy Florida.
(24:34):
That's a good Florida name right there. I thought it
was great for an earthworm festival. So I was amazed
by this. I just hope everyone else finds this as
fascinating as I do. That there, because I love any
kind of like weird folk traditions that they are just
you know, just seem at first glance to just be
completely mystical and strange, but then they end up having
(24:56):
some sort of a hidden science to them. And I
think we're running as a as a great example of that.
Um Like, I really want to see more of this
in action. I kind of want to try it for myself.
You want to start a festival here in Georgia. Well,
I don't know if I've got that far, but but
if there is an existing um one, I would I
would totally be up for checking it out. All right,
Any fun games for the whole family, Yeah, if anybody
(25:18):
there is organizing one, let us know in the southeast,
that would be all right. Well, I'm gonna read a
quick listener mail then on that note, if the robot
will bring me one, all right. This one comes to
us from Brittany. Brittany writes and and says, an interesting
kidbit to add to your information on sun dial. So
I took a Latin class a couple of years ago
(25:38):
and found out that ancient Romans divided the day daylight
day not full day, into twelve segments based on the
sun dial. The length of the segment change based on
the time of the year, but everyone followed it so
it didn't matter. There you go a little. She's of course,
responding to our clocking in episode where we talked about
the nature of time as well as how we measure
(25:59):
all right, And this one comes to us from John.
John says, Hey, Robert and Julia, I saw this video
and I just had to send to you. Guys. It
blew my mind just how much small things like the
jar in this video can change our perspectives on the
world and other people. I love your podcast and I
hope you keep blowing my mind. And he Since this
video of the statue experiment, it took place on the
high Line in New York. This is that people have
(26:20):
probably seen it on like an episode of Louis Or
or certainly some cool pictures of it where it's a
elevated train track. They turned into a little park and
there's the statue there. Uh. And at first glance, it
looks like a performance artist, you know, like the kind
of people you see, like in the streets New Orleans
who paint themselves like bright silver and then put on
some shades and stand there and wait for tips. But
then you quickly realize it's just a statue. Well, in
(26:41):
this video experiment, they put a tip jar next to
it and and everyone just starts loading the tip jar.
They instantly like like that flips on the switch to
where people decide, oh, I guess it is a person,
and then they are totally reacting to it differently. So
I found that interesting and uh, and certainly now that
we're doing more videos. Really UM always open to receive
(27:01):
some video links from people are really cool, like little
bits of viral video or scientific video that you would
like to have explained because we do this series uh
science on the web where we do that. We take
something like a cat in a shark suit on a
room but chasing a duck and we say, hey, what's
the possible science of the vest and when we started
talking about it? So if you have anything like that
(27:21):
you would like to as send to us, let us
know if you would like to talk to us about worms,
your experience with earth worms, your experiences with worm grunting
or worm charming or whatever you call your worm calling
um tradition in your part of the world, let us
know about it. We would love to hear from you. Uh.
You can find us as always that stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That is our central location, but
(27:44):
we also have social media accounts on Facebook, we're on Tumblr,
we're on Twitter where our handle is blow the Mind.
And how else can we get in touch withooks? Well,
you can always send an email and you can do
that at below the Mind at discovery dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how
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