Fuddland

18 billion earthworms are being put to work converting organic waste into fertilizer, so my Auntie tells me, and also links to an earthworm factfile, which contains the revelation that if you chop a worm in half, you don’t, in fact, get two new worms. There’s a chance you might get one worm half as long as it used to be, but you will most likely get two halves of one dead worm. I always took the “cut a worm in half and get two working worms” story as gospel [and no doubt conducted my own experiments as a child; sadly the results of my trials were not reported in any of the major journals].

Mind you, I’m not sure I trust information from a source which also reaches conclusions like:

[Earthworms] excrete digested material as worm casts and these can be seen as squiggly clumps of mud at the surface of the soil.

These castings are very rich in nutrients because they contain minerals and nutrients.

Everybody understand the complex scientific concept here? They’re rich in nutrients because they contain nutrients. Brilliant.

#1

bsag | 2004 / 04 / 11 – 16:48

I think that almost merits submission to the ‘Bad Science’ column in the Guardian.

And I always thought that the benefits of earthworms to the soil were mostly in breaking down big bits of organic matter (logically, there must be fewer nutrients in stuff after it goes through any organism — that’s the point of digestion), mixing the soil, and improving and opening up the soil structure.

#2

David | 2004 / 04 / 13 – 11:06

My considerable influence reaches the BBC News team at last! ;) They’ve updated the story itself so that it no longer contains the “… very rich in nutrients because they contain … nutrients” gem, although the factfile still does.

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