Soil Specialists

Earthworm Words

Did You Know?

The Inside Story

It's YOUR Turn

The Inside Story

Earthworms eat a lot of organic material. And, just like you, they have systems that help digest it.

You have already learned that earthworms have mouths. What you may not know is that they don't have any teeth. Instead, they use a combination of saliva and small stones to grind and digest their food.

Earthworms use their mouth and pharynx, a muscular organ that acts like a pump, to gather food. They suck in organic materials and soil and wet the food with saliva.

The pharynx isn't done yet. Next, it pushes the food through the esophagus and into a storage compartment called a crop.

The crop holds the food. When it's time, the food moves into the gizzard. Here the earthworm uses its muscles and small stones it has swallowed to grind the food into smaller pieces. Once it is ground up, the food moves into the intestines.

The intestines are in charge of digestion. When the digestive juices of the intestine have done their job, the parts of the food that the earthworm can use move into the bloodstream to be delivered to the rest of its body. Everything else is released through the anus as waste or castings.