- The term worm (vermes) is used to describe many different distantly-related animals which have a long cylindrical body and no legs.
- The world’s largest earthworm is the giant earthworm of South Africa, which can grow to as long as 6.5 m when fully extended.
- The most common worm is the earthworm, a member of phylum Annelida. Earthworms in general have been around for 120 million years, and are theorized to have evolved during the time of the dinosaurs.
- Earthworms spend their lives burrowing through soil. Soil goes in the mouth end, passes through the gut and comes out at the tail end.
- Worms vary in size from microscopic to over a metre in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms), 6.7 m (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus, and 55 m (180 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus.
- An earthworm is both male and female (hermaphrodite), and after two earthworms mate, both develop eggs.
- Plants would not grow half as well without earthworms to aerate the soil as they burrow in it, mix up the layers and make it more fertile with their droppings.
- Over half the annelid species are marine (sea) bristleworms, such as ragworms and lugworms. They are named because they are covered in bristles, which they use to paddle over the seabed or dig into the mud.
- Worms are sometimes used as a metaphor of putrefaction or corruption; a corpse may be said to be "fed to the worms".
- The sea mouse is a mouse-shaped bristleworm with furry hairs.
- In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other living forms such as larvae, insects, centipedes, shipworms (teredo worms), or even some vertebrates (creatures with a backbone) such as blindworms and caecilians.
- Flatworms look like ribbons or as though an annelid worm has been ironed flat. Their bodies do not have proper segments. Of the thousands of flatworm species, many live in the sea or in pond algae.
- Historical English-speaking cultures have used the (now deprecated) terms worm, wurm, or wyrm to describe carnivorous reptiles ("serpents"), and the related mythical beasts dragons.
- Egyptian empress Cleopatra reportedly made it a crime to kill worms in Egypt in 50 BCE due to their contribution to agriculture.
Interesting facts about worms
