Worm Bones

Did you know …

That most worms have no bones? It’s true!

I say “most” because I can’t in good scientific conscience say that “all worms have no bones” until I’ve gotten a good look inside all worms. See, I’ve opened up a lot of worms—a LOT of worms—and so far none of them had anything that looked like bones inside them. The closest any of my worms ever came to being boney was a nightcrawler that apparently had a long, sharp porous bone in its midsection, but that turned out to be a toothpick that had just fallen out of my mouth.

I typically chew on five or six toothpicks at a time, so it’s not all that strange that one would go missing and I wouldn’t notice immediately.

I haven’t even opened up all the species of worms. My samples have pretty much been limited to what I can find in and around the gravel pit. But even if I were to reach a point where I’d carefully examined a worm from every worm species . . . even then I’m not sure I could definitively say that no worms have bones. I would have a very sound theory at that point, but there always remains the possibility that there are boney worms out there—perhaps, for example, individuals living under more stressful conditions develop bones (although I’d be hard pressed to imagine a more stressful situation than being chased around a gravel pit by a man with a paring knife).

But that’s science for you!