why-animals-do-the-thing:

bogleech:

not that many people know what earthworm eggs look like so now you do

Also, the eggs form when the worm sheds a mucus layer from its clitellum – that “band” they have – and slides it off, depositing a baby into it before it leaves. The bag of mucus dries out into the pinched-off balloon looking egg.

Whoa! I needed to better visualize that, so here’s what Howstuffworks says about earthworm eggs:

“Two worms line up against one another facing opposite directions. In this position, both worms excrete so much mucous, that what is called a slime tube forms around their bodies. Each worm ejaculates sperm from its sex organs into this slime tube and it is then deposited in the other worm’s sperm receptacle. The act of mating is completed, but the process of reproduction still continues as each worm goes its separate way. You know the wide band near the front of any earthworm? That band is called the clitellum and it’s responsible for producing another tube of mucus. This band is passed forward toward the mouth end of the worm. As it travels forward, the mucus passes over the sacs containing the worm’s own eggs, which stick to the slime. Attached to the slime tube, the eggs then pass over the seminal receptacle, where the other worm’s sperm is kept. The eggs and sperm come in contact in the slime tube and if all goes well, the eggs are then fertilized.The band of slime is wriggled off the head of the worm and forms a cocoon in the shape of a lemon for the anywhere from four to 20 worm eggs that the common European earthworm typically lays. In about two to three weeks, the newborn worms will hatch and emerge from the cocoon into the soil.“