Pamela Shope, age 13, of Candler, N.C. 28715, for her question:
WHAT DO REDWORMS EAT?
The redworm is an earthworm, related to the nightcrawler and to dozens of other wormy creatures.He is redder than most of his cousins because his red blood shows more brightly through his delicate skin. Like all his relatives, he feeds mostly on tiny scraps of plant food. And as he feasts, he enriches the soil that feeds the plants which provide food and oxygen for the animals.
If you offer him a scrap of cabbage and a scrap of celery, he will choose the celery. But if you add a carrot leaf to his menu, that is what he would choose. The redworm is an earthworm and in some mysterious way, these shy little creatures like to pick and choose their favorite foods. However, all of them enjoy bits of decaying leaves.
The earthworm is at home in moist, rather warm soil. Come fall, the ground above is carpeted with fallen leaves ¬and the earthworm creeps up from his burrow to feast. His head end is a little blunter than his tail end and it has a mouth. With this he grabs a tempting looking fallen leaf and drags it partway down his burrow. There he may use some of the leaf to line a cozy corner downstairs. But some of it he most certainly will devour down there in safety where no hungry robin will find him.
Many weeds and plants live only through the summer season. When they die, they decay, breaking into small pieces that get mixed with the soil. The worm's earthy neighborhood is made of soil mixed with fragments of decaying plant food. And the clever little creature eats and digs his burrow at the same time.
He has no legs, no hands and certainly he has no shovel. Maybe you have wondered how such a helpless little fellow can dig himself a new burrow whenever he chooses. Actually he does this by eating, eating and eating the dirt. All this dirt along with scraps of tasty worm food goes down through his long wormy tummy. There the usable food is separated, ground up in a tough gizzard and digested.
The plain dirt is undigestable. This passes on through the worm's body. At last it is left behind in a neat little coil called a worm casting. Sometimes a worm may eat a tender little morsel of meat from a dead animal. A glacier worm lives on top of the ice and feeds on mini creatures that float in the melting water. But most worms feed mostly on scraps of decaying plant food.