Earthworms and Their AlliesBeddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Science
Earthworms and Their Allies
Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Earthworms
These bodies have been compared to a Pacinian body (a sense-organ
found in Vertebrates) and they bear no little resemblance to it.
For each consists of a darkly staining core surrounded by a layer
of cells arranged like the coats of an onion. In any case it would
appear that these bodies must be looked upon as of a sensory nature,
though they do not reach the surface of the body but underlie the
epidermis. Their function must remain purely a matter of guesswork
at present, for nothing to the point is known of the habits of the
Eudrilidae. It has been suggested by Dr Gustav Eisen that these cells
are auditory and serve to warn the worm of the footsteps of birds and
other enemies. That too is his view of certain peculiar but different
cells found in the epidermis of _Pontoscolex_. In the latter
something like an otosome has been found which is certainly lacking
in the Eudrilidae, whatever may be the function of the cellular
epidermic bodies here briefly referred to.
While there is thus nothing very positive to be gleaned from an
examination of the structure of the Oligochaeta as to the senses
which they may possess, experiment has done something towards an
elucidation of their behaviour under stimuli and their reaction
to light and to other forces which come into play during their
lives. There is some evidence that earthworms can see, using that
expression of course in a very broad way. At any rate they react to
changes in the intensity of light. The gross experiment of flashing
a lantern upon earthworms which are reaching out from their burrows
with the tail end inserted in those burrows shows that they have an
appreciation of light. More refined experiments have been conducted
upon the sense of light. Dr Graber used a box with two compartments,
the one of which was dark and the other illuminated with diffused
daylight, _i.e._ not direct sunlight. The worms were allowed equally
free access to both and were examined at the close of every hour, and
their positions noted. The investigator found that on the average the
dark half of the box contained 5·2 times as many worms as the light
chamber, thus indicating a very marked preference for absence of
light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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