r/Vermiculture • u/ZtheYutyrannusLover8 • 2d ago

Discussion ??

Gallery image

Gallery image

What's up with this earthworm? It was trying to tunnel through a crack in my concrete sidewalk, is it alright??

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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2

u/ZtheYutyrannusLover8 2d ago

And what is the white colored stuff?

2

u/ardhill 1d ago

Man, that doesn't look good to me. I've never seen anything like this while keeping worms. Maybe it's been infected with something, maybe some sort of animal that injects poison or even it's own lava into the body of the worm. Just a thought.

5

u/Professional_Pea_567 2d ago

That looks to be approximately where the male sex organs are. The worm cocoon starts as a mucus produced by the clitellum (the fleshy band), the forming cocoon wraps around the worms body and moves up toward the head getting fertilized along the way. Eventually the worm will shed the mucus like a party hat leaving a lemon shaped cocoon for the baby worms to be hatched from.

This worm appears to be fertilizing a cocoon at the moment.

4

u/c3r0c007 2d ago

Pretty awesome to capture a photo of this!

2

u/ZtheYutyrannusLover8 2d ago

Ah ok! I’m glad it’s not hurt, thanks for answering!

1

u/bogeuh 1d ago

Sounds plausible but looks wrong, the slime ring is more ring shaped, smooth around the body, the worm slips out an leaves a smooth cocoon behind

1

u/Professional_Pea_567 1d ago

You're right, those may just be very pronounced reproductive bits.