h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How do worms reproduce? Anyone got a clue?

Worms are hermaphrodites - they have both male and female reproductive organs in one body. If you look at an earthworm (I assume they're the ones you're on about) you will see a slightly thicker, smooth area part of the way along the body. This is called the saddle and contains at least one set of reproductive organs. I can't remember exacty how it works, whether there's another set somewhere else, but the worms lie side by side and fertilise each other.

Sorry this description isn't more detailed, but I haven't studied worms since second-year biology at secondary school. I'm surprised I can remember this much!

I'm assuming since it's very hard to tell one end of a worm from another that the female mut tckle the worm in the middle and see which end reacts and take it from there.

nope actually i don't have a clue and it's gonna be bugging me all day now.

Well it's been bugging me since the topic was first mooted over several beers last night - but hang in there!

Okay, whilst cruising old Askh2g2 threads I found this one - and now I need to know! It didn't get much interest first time around - any takers?

Heh. Maybe Cheerful Dragon might have an update!

OK, you asked for it. The following was taken from this website: http://www.icewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/about/ecology.html What they call the 'clitellum', I called the 'saddle' - the thick smooth bit on the worm's body. The site has a picture so you can see where it is.

You can tell when an earthworm is ready to mate because its’ clitellum will change colour from pinkish to red-orange. The two earthworms line up in a head to tail fashion and exchange spermatozoa (sperm). The sperm is stored in the spermathecae. Both worms do this at the same time. A slime tube then forms around the clitellum, which dries and fills with a fluid called albumin. The earthworm then wiggles out of the tube head first. While the tube passes from the clitellum to the prostomium, it passes over the female pore which deposits ovum (eggs) into the capsule, followed by the spermatheca pore (male pore) which releases the stored spermatozoa. Some earthworms mate on the soil surface and some earthworms mate in the soil. Given the dark soil environment, we think that earthworms produce a pheromone (chemical) that signals other earthworms in the area that it is ready to reproduce.

Fascinating, isn't it?

Eew, that *is* fascinating, and appropriately yucky sounding (slime tube! ). It isn't at all what I expected, although I'm not sure what I did expect.

Cheerful Dragon

And now we know...

"And now we know..."



Whether we wanted to or not.

What about snakes, those have interesting mating habits as well. There are some where they do a regular gangbang. A whole bunch of snakes all curl into each other in one big knot, and somehow the females get fertilized. Probably not knowing which one the father is. And it seems anacondas are capable of virgin births as well.

The snakes sound a bit like Blackpool on a Saturday night.

Are anacondas hermaphrodite then? Or what...

No, they have two sexes. But the virgin births they don`t really know wether it happens or not. They used to think the female snakes were able to store sperm in them for a long time, and then impregnate themselves later on. But then one snake gave birth without ever having been near a male.

Intriguing...But I'm afraid to Google "Snake Virgin Birth" or anything of the like...Gawd knows what I'll find *G*

I did Biology for three years, and the only thing I've taken away from it is the mechanics of how earthworms (or, as we smarmy gits say, Lumbricus Terrestrus ) make the beast with two backs. I seem to remember our teacher using the word 'trickle' in his description of the exchange of sperm This is probably what burned it into my mind. Anyway, if the subject of biology ever comes up now I enthusiastically offer to describe the process - you wouldn't *believe* how popular this makes me.

Interestingly, this is the first link to appear in the afore-mentioned Google search:

http://www.rnw.nl/science/html/030224snake.html

Raunchy!