Lugworm casts on the beach, Islay
Who dwells beneath the sands of Islay? Lugworms do. These embedded annelids process the sediment for food, extruding the undigested sand in charismatic piles that adorn the beach of Loch Gruinart.
annelids
Monday macrobug: Earthworm!
I’m branching out with my macro”bugs” here – using the term sensu lato, to include all creepy-crawlies. Here’s a night crawler (Lumbricus terrestris), a non-native species of earthworm, that somehow found its way into our basement during a rainy period in late summer… He/she (worms are hermaphrodites) is long! I was astonished with a lengthy … Read more
The Earth Moved, by Amy Stewart
Today, I finished a book about earthworms. It wasn’t the greatest natural history book I’ve ever read, but it was the first one I’ve read specifically on the subject of worms. I’ve gotten interested in soil ecology and chemistry. Now that I own some land, I’m curious how to manage it for maximum productivity (both … Read more