Stuff You Should Know - How Earthworms Work

Episode Date: December 15, 2011

Earthworms come in a wide range of sizes: The average U.S. earthworm is 6 to 11 inches long, and the giant worms of Australia and South America can grow to a length of 11 feet. Join Josh and Chuck as they burrow into the weird world of earthworms. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and that makes this Stuff You Should Know. Take two. Rarely do we have a take two. Very rarely. But we did today. Yeah, we did. We started just kind of talking in shop. Jerry's like, what are you guys doing?

Yeah. But anyway, here we are. We're back. We're happy. Everything's good. And we're going to talk a little bit about earthworms, right? Yes. You feeling good about this one? I am. Very interesting stuff. I wrote this article specifically so we could podcast on it. Yeah. So Chuck. Yes. Have you heard of a man named Charles Darwin? You know, I love Chuck E. D. So Chuck E. D. Chuck D. Charles Darwin. Very famous for the on the origin of the species. Incredibly important work. Did you know, though, that the origin of the species was outsold in the 19th 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. Throughout the rest of the 19th century. It was published in 1881. And I think the origin of the species came a little after that. But just during the 19th century, for a while there, the Formation of Vegetable Mold was outselling on the origin of the species. I saw today where he studied earthworms for 39 years. Yeah. This book was very near and dear to his heart, like this topic was. He spent a lot of time really looking at earthworms. 39 years. I guess he died because why would you give up at 39? I would say let's just make it an even 40. I think he wrote the book and was like, okay. Done. There you go. I'm done. Let's go to Galapagos. Exactly. He came up with in this 39 years.

The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for

what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals, and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg opinion. And I'm your host for Crash Course, a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to explore the lessons we can learn when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power.

Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world, as well as experts in big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political, and social disruptions and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course, a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So there you have it. The earthworm is very, very important. I didn't know he talked like that. I didn't either. It's kind of surprising. But this idea, this concept of the earthworm is extremely important to the earth, was kind of put forth by Darwin, has been accepted as gospel

since then. 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 as extinct, like worms they just hadn't seen in a while, that would just later pop back up like the giant Palouse earthworm in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It was thought to be extinct, classified as such in the 80s. And then in 2010, it pops up and they're like, oh, it's not extinct. The worm popped up. Yeah. And that happens a lot with earthworms. People just classified them as extinct. So this kind of like these appearances have kind of reinvigorated science and its inquiry into earthworms. I wonder how he got on it. Who, 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 valuable at all. No, but people before Darwin realized the value of earthworms, like Aristotle called them the intestines of the soil. Okay, I got you. No, but he's the one who dedicated 39 years to studying them. Okay. So just in sheer size alone, I guess in sheer volume is a better way to put it. Earthworms are, they have a substantial impact on earth. It's that time? I think so. 3,000 species. Notice I didn't say species. You know, people say species. Sorry, species. Germans? No, a lot of people say species. Species. Species. Species. I don't know

which one I say. I think both are acceptable. I think not. Species. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. They have a range in size from about a centimeter to nine feet, although they go way more than that. Yeah. I think the world record I found was one in South Africa was 22 feet long. A 22 foot 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. Plus, we get to say the word hectare just close to two and a half acres. Yeah, it's like 2.47. A single hectare, you can find 500,000 to 2 million worms and their total biomass, wet biomass,

equals 10 times the total weight of all the other animals living above ground combined on that same size spot of land. Yeah. On that same hectare. Yeah. That's nutty. That is nutty, especially considering that worms don't go that deep. Well, yeah. Maybe 10 feet into the soil. Let's say there's 12 deer on that hectare. Yeah. I mean, that's going to be a lot of weight right there. Just from the deer. Say each deer weighs 150 pounds. It's like 1,800 pounds. Yeah. And that's if there's only a dozen deer. Some amount of kilograms. Yeah. That's probably like 900 kilograms. So the point is a lot of worms. Yeah. There are, there's a ton of worms. They're spread all over the place. But here's an interesting fact. If you've read 1493, you probably already know this.

Charles Mann's brilliant follow up to his triumphant 1491. I can't wait for 1494. Yeah. Look out for that one. He's just going to pick some random date like 1955. If the, if you go into the average North American woods in the Northern United States, say, and you find an earthworm, that earthworm, had you dug in the same spot 500 years before, you wouldn't have found any earthworms there. Like all earthworms in North America and Canada, above about the 40th degree latitude, are new. They're relatively recent immigrants from Asia and Europe. And they hitched a ride thanks to the colonists to America in plants, the soil. Yeah, root balls that were attached to plants that were imported to the United States and Canada

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 that? I'm right here. Do they know what was here before the Ice Age that killed off all the original native species? Like surely there were worms. That is an excellent question. Okay. No. They don't know. No, they know that. I guess not because it was pre Ice Age. It's not like they had records. There were some. There's fossil records of earthworms that go back like 165 million years. Like there was a huge giant earthworm that was armor plated, right? Really? Yeah. But the stuff in North America, apparently the fossil record is fairly incomplete here.

Okay. They do suspect that a lot of worms made their way southward toward warmer ground when these glacial ice sheets started bearing down from Canada and the Northern United States. A lot of stuff died. Some stuff hightailed itself. So you can bet that if you go to Southern California or Mexico and dig 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 Ice Age. 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 that are here, especially the common European earthworm, which we hear in the United States called night

crawlers. 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 10 to 20,000 years ago, these woodlands in the Northern United States 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, no doubt. We're going to 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 going to find all three classifications of earthworm because 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, 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. Epigieg. Yeah. Is that how you pronounce that? I've been pronouncing it in my head, Gaiac, but Giac sounds a lot. Ooh, I like Gaiac. Do you like Gaiac? Yeah, let's go with that. Well, because it's a, it's derivative of Gaia, earth. Right.

And Epi is above. So this is the, 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 the, these red wigglers, red worms, have a lot to do with the fact that it's, you know, eventually going to 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. So are the next level down, you get to the endo Gaiac, as we'll say now. They live

in the top soil, the sort of, you know, how deep, like the first several inches. Yeah, you know, like the dark top soil. Yeah, the good stuff. Yes. As I like to call it. Yeah. And they spend their whole lives beneath the soil, which is why they're usually like very light in color, gray, pinkish. They're kind of uglier. They're disgusting. Yeah. I have you ever seen that movie, The Lair of the White Worm? No. That's a great horror movie. Yeah. I've heard of Hugh Grant's first movies. Oh, awesome. Was he the white worm? No, he was the dude. Okay. You played a man. Yeah. You say because they live under the soil, full time, that the least amount of information is known about them. But another question. Okay. The next level down that anesic. Anesic.

Anesic. They hold the night crawlers. Right. The deepest dwelling ones. But it seems like we know more about them than the other guys, the little pink and gray guys. So why would that be? Well, the reason is because the little pink and gray guys, the epigaiic ones, spend their whole lives underground. So they just stay there? Yes. Okay. They also make horizontal burrows. Right. 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 night crawlers come up and then go back down. Exactly. Not only do night crawlers come up, they come up and travel as far as like 62 feet in a night looking for food. Like they hang out above ground. The epigaiic 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 science generally was like, okay, Darwin wrote the book on earth where you don't have to do any more investigation about that. Interesting. Yeah. Another cool fact about the night crawler is that they go upstairs to grab some food and bring it back down. They're like, hey, that leaf is really choice and moist. Yeah. So I'm going to grab it and take it back downstairs and just chow till my little belly bursts. Exactly. I love that. Yeah. But it also kind of gives you an idea of like just how powerful like a night crawler 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 a brim and 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 worm, this fish was dying. And one of his buddies was just sitting there almost at the bank, almost up on the ground watching me. Howling. Just looking at me like, why did you do that? So that and then the eye that she clubbed that one. I was like, stop looking at me, fish and just punch the water. That the potential of a fish dying and then the guarantee of worms dying. Yeah. Made me quit fishing forever. Yeah. I use our sticks because fish is fun. Fishing is fun. I love the fish. Yeah. But I just don't do it anymore. All right. Well, that's sad

for you. I'll club fish. Like I'll go clubbing. Yeah. But I won't actually use like a rod and reel. Earthworms are segmented, Josh, which is also very interesting. They are from the phylum anilid, which means ringed worm. Yeah. And there's about 100 to 150 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. Yeah. And they have these bristles at the front toward the head, the anterior end that are retractable. They're called sette and they can just go 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 sette go in and out depending on whether the

head's moving or it needs to be anchored so the rest of the body can catch up. And that's how they scoot along at 62 feet per night for night crawlers. So pretty much Chuck, I don't know what we're naming this one yet, but one of the suggestions you made was earthworms eating and pooping machines. Yeah, kind of like sharks. Kind of. But possibly even more beneficial than sharks. Sharks are like an apex predator, right? Yeah, of course. Earthworms are not an apex predator, but like I said, Aristotle call them the intestines 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 episode? How could I forget? So like

the stuff that comes out of us, it's like nobody needs that. It's total waste. Yeah. With the worm, it's actually better than it was before. Worm 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. They obviously eat and you're not going to be able to tell a huge difference between the mouth end and the anus end. No, unless you really dig your fingers in there. But at the mouth end, they're going to pass dirt and organic matter into their mouth and it's going to 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. Yeah, to make it easier to pass through. That's right. That is so cool. And in the intestinal walls, they're aligned with blood vessels and sort of like our own blood vessels, they absorb and distribute nutrients. Right. So it's not that much different than people. Yeah, no, it's not. The thing about earthworms though is the nutrients, especially nitrogen, that they eat, that they pass out is about 75% of what was say locked into a leaf. Right. So they only keep like a quarter of the available nitrogen for themselves. Softle nice. 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. They're the secret ingredient. Well, they're not secret, but key ingredient to compost. Yeah. But that's the that's the epigaiac. Right. The ones that live above ground. Yeah, the red or the compost ones. The earthworms like the anaesthetic ones, they're big in composting too, but they do it below ground. Right. Yeah. Earthworm has five hearts. Yeah. Kind of a neat fact right there. Yeah. I would say

aortic arches. And I saw, I think I saw in another photo, like they have one of the main ones. Is that right? And then four other ones or they all equal. I think that they are, there's a main one. Okay. I believe so. You think I'd know. You and Chuck D breathing through their skin is another cool trait. They don't have lungs. Yeah. But they still need to breathe. So they just pass it passively through the skin. Yeah. Inhaling and exhaling. Well, there's no inhaler exhale. Yeah. It just happens. But I call that an inhale, even though there's no bodies. When I was writing this, I had to go back. I was like, no, they're not inhaling. Right. Yeah.

As long as their skin is coated in this mucus that they produce, that's how air exchange is allowed to take place. 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 that air exchange is still taking place. They're just grabbing oxygen. Yeah. The problem is when they encounter like really dry hot air like above ground. Yeah. I think we've all seen that sad, sad sight. Right. So if you, if you've ever seen like a worm that's curled up and is dry on the sidewalk, that worm suffocated to death because it wasn't able to breathe, it's mucus dried out. It's so sad. It couldn't breathe. No. And all it needed to do was reach those leaves.

Yeah. But it failed on the sidewalk. And that happens a lot in Georgia, obviously. You see a lot of those in the summertime. Oh yeah. 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. Right. But they're able to sense light through these photosensitive 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 that's also the, the role for their brain, that their brain plays is to say, I'm sensing some light. So let's move down a little further 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 and you're hardly going to notice any change in behavior, right? 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 removed 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 it's a part of it is chopped off somehow, they can regenerate more toward the tail than the head. Is that right? So like the, if you cut a worm in half, only one half is going to regenerate.

Oh, okay. That's what I was confused about. And most likely it's the head and they have an easier time regenerating their tail than they have their head. That makes sense. The thing is, is one of the joys of this is like, anytime there's a question or something's vague, I can be like, yeah, science really dropped the ball on earthworm research for a century. Not my fault. There is evidence that like both sides can regenerate into two new worms. People have documented this supposedly. There's like different contrary evidence about how much could regenerate or how little like how little of a segment you need to regenerate into a new worm.

Right. So there's a bunch of, apparently there's a bunch of evidence out there that says like worms are spectacular at 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. 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 and was going to regenerate, always put your money on the tail end. I could never, I mean, it's just a little worm back and never do that because they just squirm so much like they're in horrible pain. Yeah. Yeah. Have you read Consider the Lobster? No. David Foster Wallace, like his article for Gourmet magazine. It's good. Well, they sent him to like the Lobster

Festival and we're 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. Yeah. And that like make noises to all that happens. They do. They scratch like the pot trying to get out. Of course they do. But the key is, is like, yes, surely they feel pain. Right. Of course they feel pain. It's been shown that they have nerve receptors that, you know, sense pain. Do they experience suffering? Right. So is that worm squirming in pain and suffering or just pain? And really, does it matter? I mean, then think inflicting pain on anything is cruel, but inflicting suffering is evil.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't eat much lobster. Yeah. You me read that and was like, I'm never eating lobster again. I was like, yeah. Oh, I like a good lobster bisque though. I love lobster, man. Yeah. But there's another cool thing from this article. Did you know that until probably about the 20th century, people considered lobster like sea insects? Well, they kind of are. It was for like 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 likened to spiders as close to anything. Yeah. And they'll like cannibalize one another. They're just like really crazy. Boy, you dip it in that drawn butter. I know. I'm with you. 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 clotelum and fertilization. So you know like the band on an earthworm? Well, let's talk about the first part first. Okay. Earthworm reproduction. Yeah. You wanted, this is the fact for me. They're simultaneous hermaphrodites. Yeah. All of them. Yeah. 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. Right. With simultaneous hermaphrodites, they have both reproductive organs of male and female for their whole lives. Which is pretty cool and another great reason why they've hung around in such vast numbers forever. Yeah. So what they do if they want to make love is 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 mucus tube that they both get in or they're in, I guess. But they used to like rub against one another. Well, the trick is though they're encased in this tube, right? So when they

release their semen, it's just rubs around until it finds the semen receptacle. Is that right? Of the other worm. Well, obviously. Right. Yeah. But yeah, that's exactly right. They perverse. They rub on one another with their slime tubes and their semen's all over their slime tubes and then yeah, 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, this is this is unedited. So I need to go through it. But okay, I'll see if I can explain it. And this is taken 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 I was probably trying not to

paraphrase or plagiarize him, which is why I'm like, oh, just make it more confusing than he wrote. Basically, you know, the band on the earthworm, like say a night crawler that thick, the thickest band, that's the clotelum. Yeah, it's like 15 segments in. Yeah. Yeah. And but in like three or four segments, why, but it's just one segment. Right. So the clotelum is responsible for creating another band of mucus, a 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. Okay. Attaches the eggs to the slime tube. Okay. The slime tube then keeps moving forward across the seminal receptacle where the other worm sperm is now deposited. Right. So as the

slime tube with the eggs attached, move over the seminal receptacle, the eggs become fertilized by the other worm sperm that slime tube from the clotelum keeps going over the head. And as the worm, as it passes all the way over the worm's head, it closes off, right? Because it's mucus. Yeah. And forms a cocoon. And now inside that cocoon are fertilized worm eggs. Four to 20, roughly. For like a night crawler, it's about four to 20. It could be as little as one 20 is the highest I've seen. Right. And then there's little baby worm eggs in there that are now fertilized that will sit there for like, I can't remember how many weeks. Two to three weeks. Okay. And then you get little newborn babies. Yeah. And they can do this every

seven to 10 days. Yeah. Which is yet another reason why they're abundant in surviving and thriving. Well, then the other, the other point is both worms that are in this mating process can become pregnant or can lay fertilized cocoon. So there is no such thing as just a male worm or a female earthworm. They're both. They're hermaphroditic. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Really? That's not that they can come across in this paragraph? I was slightly confused. I'll rewrite it then. Just slightly. I'll rewrite it. You don't have to do it now. I need to make a note too. Okay. Their life expectancy is pretty impressive too. A night crawler can live up to 20 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 under foot. Yeah. You know, compared to like an insect. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty amazing. Red wigglers, two to five years, gray worms between 1.25 and 2.6 years. Yeah. Very specific. Yeah. Well done. That's a Murataki who came up with that one. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's a long time, even for the lowly, ugly gray worm. Two and a half years is pretty good. Yeah. And they actually have this thing called estivation, which is a form of hibernation. Yeah. I thought that was really cool too. It's actually more efficient than hibernation. In hibernation, like a bear that's sleeping, they have to gorge themselves before they hibernate because they're going to be,

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. They just 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 pretty much to stay moist. Yeah. And the reason they're doing this is because worms definitely have like preferences for like the temperature 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 10,000 years.

Well, when they, they're cold-blooded, but when they freeze, they die. Yeah. You're talking about their preferences between 50 and 90% humidity, which is why Georgia has lots of worms between 59 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit is about what they like. They can survive, but they're not going to be as active and thrive and outside those conditions. Right. That's like when they're most active is between those. And they will eat any kind of organic matter that's decaying. But this is kind of cool. They found out they actually like certain stuff more than others, which is neat. Yeah. And the way I read it was because they like the taste. At least that's how I anthropomorphize. That's so close species. In Washington state, they prefer maple over oak.

And right here in Georgia, they prefer clover over grass. Yeah. That's pretty neat. Yeah. 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 that clay here. They do very well. As a matter of fact, they are the reason why, well, they're one reason why any water can percolate through the clay. But man, I had clay in my backyard that was impenetrable, it seemed like. Worms can penetrate it. Really? To a certain extent. Yeah. So pretty much what Darwin came up with is that earthworms are extraordinarily helpful. Yeah. And we'll talk about in a minute, like scientists have come to realize like, okay,

well, they're still an invasive species. And as a result, it's not all beneficial. Right. 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 water table, I guess. Yeah. It allows roots to grow more easily. Aeration. And 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. Yeah. They're moving the earth

under there. So you don't have to. Right. We talked about nitrogen fixing with their castings, where they take about 25%. So casting is their poop. Is that right? Yeah. That's a nice word for their poop. Okay. Worm castings. And apparently Darwin calculated that in 10 years, 10 years worth of worm castings would cover an acre of land about two inches thick. So if you took all the worm castings produced by a group of worms in an acre in 10 years, you'd have two inches of worm casting. That's crazy. Yeah. And like you said earlier, I think they only take about 27% of the nitrogen for themselves. They're like, world, you can have the other 73%. Yeah. And again, it's in a usable form now as a nutrient. Pretty awesome. Yeah. 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, what do you have here? 9,240 pounds or 4,200 kilograms of organic litter for every hectare in 11 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 definitely do, like nitrogen, right? But they're taking too much. Right. So also that litter horizon, that layer of leaves right above the soil, there's this layer that's closest to the soil surface that's at the bottom of this leaf layer is called duff. It's like the

spongy dark organic material. That is actually a nice little place for a seed to safely gestate. Sure. So without that duff, without it being there long enough for a seed to start to germinate, sorry, not gestate, but germinate, understory plants like smaller plants, saplings, plants that aren't going to grow as big as trees in a woodland, they have trouble taking hold. And actually, you can see photos side by side on the internet of without worms, with worms. And the difference is this wasteland 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. That's sad. Actually, it can reduce the understory canopy between like 25 and 75%. The presence of earthworms can because they eat

so much so fast that not enough leafletters falling to keep the worms happy and allow 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 the chain, because you're going to have mammals, larger mammals are going to want to eat vegetables and leaves. And if they're not there, then they're going to be in trouble. And then we're in trouble. Yeah, what about the deer? Where are we going to 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 eat deer. I don't eat against it. I just don't come upon it that much. Yeah, you have to go to like one of those

processing places out in the country. They always have like deer for sale. Yeah. Yeah. The War on Drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty.

Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion. And I'm your host for Crash Course, a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to

explore the lessons we can learn when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power. Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world, as well as experts in big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political and social disruptions, and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course, a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. They are also contributing to global warming, in a way, because they are emitting lots of carbon as they go through all this organic matter. Some of the carbon is going to be released there, or some of it's going to be released as

carbon. And they have a stat here from Colgate University. 20, what are they? New York. No, Colgate. Fighting toothbrushes. Fighting toothbrushes. They contribute as much as 28% an additional 28% of carbon released from the soil. So that's substantial. Yeah. But there are other studies that show that actually, depending on where you are, like that Colgate was a North American study, they found that in Malaysia or Vietnam, they're actually better, they actually lock 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 a human? If you're a human, yeah, you love the worm. Okay. Yeah. I have a couple of additional little facts. The biggest worm, I know you found some in Japan, but the Australian Gypsilin Earthworm, I saw 12 feet long, two pounds. Wow. It's a lot of worm. Yeah. And what was the Japan one? Was that just another giant earthworm? There's just a bunch of like, I think because Japan's 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. Yeah. Because people have these things wrapped around their neck and stuff. Yeah. And

it's just this big, mindless worm. Like, they're not aggressive, like they're depicted in tremors, but they're still like, whoa. They can eat their weight every day. Saw that. That's a good one. They are able to move forwards and backwards, but they like moving forwards. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I didn't know this. If the soil dries up, some of them can actually lose their clotelum, but once they get moist again, it can come back. Cool. So that's another survival adaptation, I guess. It's very cool. Pretty cool. So you got anything else? 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 worms. I definitely haven't. It wouldn't have been fried. It would have been like somebody

was like, here, eat this. Right. Raw. 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. I think it was written by a man, and they made a movie about it. I never saw the movie. I didn't either. There's no way I was going to spoil that childhood memory. It was a good thinking joke. All right. Well, if you want to learn more about earthworms, probably wait a couple 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 earthworms in a couple weeks at the search bar at howstuffworks.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, though, we have 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 most folks, sometimes it's a very sad time of year for others. And 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, you know, it's very sad and we wish there was more we could do, but we're thinking about you during the holidays and we hope everyone out there and this stuff you should know, Army, is hanging in there. Yeah. Nice check. That was very nice of you. So onto the email. I'm going to call this

Sherpa, overdue Sherpa email from Grace. Hey guys, Ann 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 then. I would think you'd have to be really, really near it to not get a good look at it. Oh, maybe that was the case. He was so close.

This is like a wall. A wall of rock. 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 and he lived there until last year. From what I understand, they were still under the threat from Maoist. So they came to America as a refugee still. Here's his little additional facts as the plural of Sherpa is Sherpas. So we were right. Cool. You pronounce the region, Solu Kumbu, correctly. And he was very excited about that. And he said there are a lot of potatoes now. Remember, 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. 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 to bore him. So he was excited about it. She was excited about it. And she just wants to say thanks for reading this on the air. Sweet. And that is from Grace. Thanks a lot, Grace. Thank you to your Sherpa friend, too, for supporting us. And welcome to America, Sherpa boy. And good luck here. Wow. Chuck, you're just spreading glad tidings all over the place, aren't you? Of great joy. Yeah. If you want to spread glad tidings to us or to anybody else through us, you can send us an email at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.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 has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Thank you. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the

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