• Question: How do worms have babies?

    Asked by Yr10SwindonAcademy to Ellen, Elliot, Hazel, Rupesh, Thomas on 16 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Hazel Garvie-Cook

      Hazel Garvie-Cook answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Thanks for asking this question! I didn’t know so I had a look online 🙂

      Worms are hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs. When one worm finds another to mate with, they join their heads together and one passes sperm to the other. A cocoon then forms, which contains the sperm of one worm and the eggs of the other. Fertilization takes place within the cocoon and baby worms start to grow! If conditions are right, the baby worms will hatch out of the cocoon two to three weeks after it formed. Baby worms start off at around 1 cm long and are almost transparent! The grow up quickly and in six weeks are ready to have babies of their own.

    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Hazel did a good job at researching there!

      I would just add given they have male and female reproductive parts, some worms are actually able to self-fertilise – so they can make babies all by themselves. So they can essentially make copies of themselves.

      It is usually better for them to mate with other worms though, to increase what is known as genetic diversity. If all the worms were the same copies of each other, if there was a disease that came along that could kill one of them, it could wipe out all the worms. By mixing genetic material with other worms, there is a bit more variety so you might have some worms who would be able to survive the disease.

    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      Well Hazel and Elliot have this question pretty well covered.

      I’ll just add that worms are useful because they help to keep the soil in the ground good enough to grow plants some of which we use for food. This is because they mix the soil when they’re passing through which also allows for a good amount of air and water to be taking into the soil. So having worms in your garden is usually a good thing!

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