Look at this slow worm! 😮 Slow... - Essex Wildlife Trust

Slow Worm

A ‘broken’ slow worm

The black aquatic worm Lumbriculus variegatus needs to stay wet so it can breathe through its skin. A single worm lives less than an hour in air at room temperature and humidity. But when they form blobs, which can be the size of a basketball or bigger, survival time shoots up, a new study shows. The worms glom together to minimize the exposed surface area that loses moisture, and thus really big blobs can even withstand being dried with a hairdryer. Based on their growing understanding of these