Do Worms Have Mouths? Curious Earthworm Facts For Kids!

Earthworms are known as a farmer's best friend, they are a good indicator of soil health and they are good indicators of a number of things such as waterlogging, compaction, and even organic matter, as they are sensitive to these things.

These tiny earthworms can improve soil health, as they form tiny burrows into the soil which helps the plant collect extra moisture. The burrows of this species also contain plant nutrients such as nitrogen and sulfur, hence their tiny vertical burrows are of great help in a farm.

You will always find worms or earthworms in a place where there is plenty of food, oxygen, and a good amount of moisture. They often live near such areas.

The worms tunnel vertically in the soil and these tunnels improve the soil health. Earthworms and other worm species have the gift of breathing through their skin since they don't have lungs.

Their moist skin helps the worms to breathe.

Earthworms also don't have teeth but they have an extension that looks like lips and it comes out of their mouth and helps them by pushing the food directly to the esophagus. Their mouth is equipped to eat, not through teeth but through the tongue-like extension that they have in their mouths.

All the worms or earthworms don't have eyes, they have cells on their head which are known as receptor cells that can sense light. The worms and earthworms have a circulatory system, which is pretty different from other animals.

The worm's blood is circulated through vessels and thas how the worm's circularity system works.

As the head of an earthworm doesn't have any eyes, in order to be familiar with the surrounding environment, the earthworm's tiny hair comes into play. They are present in the front body and back body, and that's called setae.

They are located at the back and front of their bodies and help these organs to be more familiar with their surroundings. An earthworm's body is indeed nature's miracle since their way of eating and how their mouth works are very different from what we see on a regular basis among animals.

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Do worms have a face?

No, no species of worms have faces, they also don't have teeth and their mouth works in a very different way it comes to eating.

Although they eat a number of things, most things that they eat are decaying vegetables or plant material, they can also eat decaying bodies of the animals. However, this calls for the question of when a worm doesn't have a mouth, then how do they do these everyday activities?

The bottom line is no worm has a face.

They have a crucial organ that is known as the head. The head is referred to as their anterior end and their tail on the other side of their body is known as the posterior end.

An earthworm can eat just fine even without teeth or mouth. There are a number of other organs that take the place of the organs which they don't have.

For example, an earthworm doesn't have a mouth, hence altogether it doesn't have a nose to breathe, eyes to see, or teeth to eat.

To make up for the missing parts, the earthworms have other body parts which work in a similar way. For their teeth, they have a tongue-like tension coming out of their mouth which makes the whole process very easy.

They don't need to chew the food, the extension directly takes the food to the esophagus. In the place of eyes, they have tiny hairs which lie in different parts of their body.

They don't have a nose or any kind of lungs which helps them with the intake of oxygen and other such things. In the place of such complex organs, they simply have their skin.

Their skin is covered with mucus, which helps to absorb the oxygen, so the role of lungs and nose ends here.

They often come out from the soil in rain, they cannot stay on the soil the whole time otherwise their mucus will dry off and it will be difficult for them to survive. Thus, that's why you find worms and earthworms in environments where there is a lot of moisture.

Do earthworms have lips?

No, adult worms or earthworms don't have a lip however the other end of their mouth which is the prostomium looks like a lip and resembles a lip-like structure.

The earthworm's head is very muscular and also very important. Their muscular mouth helps them to eat a bunch of things, which sometimes also includes some living organisms.

Their body has a number of functions to do, one of which is making an egg cocoon, the same is done only in adult worms. Even though earthworms don't have lips or usual parts of the mouth that we are familiar with, these worms have other replacement organs in place of that which works just fine.

The prostomium in front of their mouths resembles a lip but in reality, it's not a lip. Then comes the pharynx which resembles a tongue but in reality that's not a tongue.

The pharynx has tongue-like workings but it's not a tongue, it simply pushes the food deeper into the body and makes the whole digestion and other such processes more easily done. An earthworm's body is divided into segments like any other worm.

The difference between worms and insects is that insects have only three segments, whereas worms have 100 segments. Each segment on a worm's body has hair that helps them to move.

One more interesting fact about a worm is they have clitellum. If a worm has clitellum that means the worm has mated and now they will be secreting eggs.

The clitellum is seen only in an adult worm. The muscular mouth of these worms has most of the vital organs.

How do worms eat?

Worms don't have teeth and other working organs which usual animal mouths have. Rather they have different organs which help the worm do the same things but in a different way.

There is no worm on the planet that has teeth, until and unless they are genetically modified by humans or an extremely rare species. Worms generally don't have teeth and for the most part, they don't require teeth.

An earthworm eats plants and a nutrition-rich diet such as animal decay, which is already not in solid form, thanks to nature.

Hence their food present in nature is already very soft, for example, plant decay is extremely soft and is a broken-down form of leaf and wood. Hence, they usually don't need teeth, and instead, they have a tongue-like feature that helps the worm gulp down its food.

Can a worm bite you?

It's not possible for worms to bite you, an earthworm generally doesn't come out from soil so the chances of you encountering them are also reduced.

Some worms can spread some diseases but all in all, no worm can bite you. Worms are not good for anyone and we should stay away from them, but even if you hold them the worms won't bite you.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for whether worms have mouths, then why not take a look at facts about Doberman tail docking, or earthworm facts?