Worms are ubiquitous. In particular, rainfall. They belong to one of the most common families of worms - annelids. Such worms got their name due to the fact that their body consists of separate rings strung on an elastic base.
But what about the worms?
Earthworms are an important element in our world's food chain. And not only. Recycling tons of organic residues, worms not only cleanse the earth, but also enrich it with humus, increase fertility, loosen the soil and allow air to penetrate to the very roots of plants, thereby increasing its yield.
It is not easy to figure out, looking at the worm, where it starts or where it ends. That is, at first glance it is impossible to understand where his head is and where his tail is. Only he himself, apparently, does not attach much importance to this, since the very shape of his body allows him to easily move to search for food in any direction.
Ringworms have amazing locomotion. Each ring of the body has tiny bristles on the sides that allow the worm to move. The worm also has genitals. This is a well-visible band on the body of the worm. It is he who is the main part of the breeding system.
Worms have another unique and extremely important property for them. They are all bisexual, that is, hermaphrodites. Having simultaneously fully formed genitals of both sexes, the worms, when they meet, do not think about what role to play this time. For this reason, any two worms upon meeting are already capable of reproduction.
This is the kind of love
The worms exchange semen when they meet. It has the ability to persist for some time in the mucus covering the body of the worm. This mucus is secreted by special cells located on the girdle. When the sperm mature, the same belt secretes mucus, which forms a special cocoon. The worm pushes the cocoon over the head, thereby adding eggs coming from the genital segments to it. When sperm and eggs come into contact, the latter are fertilized.
In the cocoon remaining in the ground, the development of future worms takes place. After a certain time, tiny, but already fully formed worms come out of it.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the only way worms reproduce. Thanks to its incredible ability to regenerate, individual parts of the worm are easily restored to a whole. That is, if you cut the worm, then there will already be two of them. The only drawback of this method is that, for some unknown reason, all the recovered worms become females.
But this is not the limit. Worms are able to reproduce and asexually, again, only females will be present in such a population.
