Pet Worm

My window plant - potential worm home

In my state of creative delirium, that usually occurs when I work a lot of hours with little sleep, my brain comes up with ideas. Ideas that could be taken as extremely brilliant or utterly stupid. I'll let you decide. Today's brilliant question is...

Can worms be pets?

To be specific the earthworm, not worms that you might find in your intestinal tract. Sure earth worms may not be very cuddly, or furry (or are they?). People have reptiles for pets. People have piranhas as pet fish. Some even have pet rocks. So why not a worm? You'd think it would be an ideal pet to have around as it's pretty low maintenance. Perfect for those animator types that put in long hours and might forget to take their shoes off to go to sleep let alone feed an animal.

Petting your worm could prove difficult as you'd have to dig for it if you let it live with your plants. But hey they do have ant farms. I wonder if there's a company that makes plexiglass worm farms? A couple of years ago I think season three or maybe four of Earth Final Conflict there was a glass container made for a set with scientists checking up on meal worms. I'm not sure if that was custom made or if there was an actual company that made it.

What end is what with a worm anyways? If you have more than one worm how do you tell them apart for naming purposes? How old do worms get? How fat do they get and how long do they grow? As this is the World Wide web, I poked around to find answers to these questions as well as a whole bunch of other useless facts that you can bring up at a party to seem mildly interesting.

FACTS

• Earthworms can grow up to 30 cm in length here in Ontario. In some places there have been documented cases where worms grow up to 3 meters. Holy Cow!


• The bulge on the earth worm is called the clitellum. This is where the reproductive organs are. It's possible during dry periods that the worms can lose it's reproductive organs and regain them when weather conditions become more humid.


• The end nearest to the bulge is the head or anterior. The other end is the posterior (the butt).
  


• The worm has five hearts. So next time you meet someone with a lot of heart you can call them a worm. (yeah sure... it'll be just as popular as calling a girl a C.O.W. - Career Oriented Woman).
  


• The brain, the hearts, and breathing organs are located in the first few segments of the worm. That's why a worm can still live if cut in two (somewhere between the butt end and the clitellum) . The end part dies off.


• A worm can eat between one third and it's weight in a day


• The worm's mucus, the reason why they are slimey, is produced by the clitellum. The worm uses the mucus to keep the skin moist. The skin has to be wet in order for the worm to breathe. Putting a worm under water will drown the worm.
  


• A worms gestation period is 3 to 5 weeks depending on the species.


• Earth worms move by using tiny bristles called setae. There are four pairs of setae located on each segment of their body. The setae are used like little anchors that move in and out from the worms body. The worm then contracts or expands the rest of it's body to move.


• A worm has both male and female reproductive organs but you still require two worms to get it on and produce offspring.


• Worms can become paralyzed if exposed to light for too long (about one hour). I suppose this is why they don't sell worm containers made like larger versions of ant farms. Mental note: Do not use flash when taking pictures of worms.
  

For more information on worms check out the Squirmin' Hermin site.

Mowaaaandeeb!