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Earthworm locomotion
Name: smoke
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Around 1993
Question:
How earthworms move in soil? Do they eat the dirt? Push it
away? What?
Replies:
Earthworms eat stuff that is in the dirt, and what they excrete
out the other end is actually what we call dirt, in many cases. So in a
sense, they make dirt. But that is not how they move. Earthworms have little
barbs sticking out of their bellies, which can point either forward or
backwards, and they have muscles which contract the whole body lengthwise. If
the barbs point backwards and the body contracts, the worm moves forwards, and
the other way around. It is like if you grab onto something with you hands
when you are lying down and scrunch up your body, you will move forward,
toward your hands. If you leave your hands free and hook onto something with
your feet and scrunch up your body, you will move backwards.
profbill
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Update: June 2012
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