A terrible thing is a downpour in the village. In the dead silence under a gloomy gray sky, worms, as if raised by an evil necromancer, emerge from the ground by the hundreds, filling the roads, highways, and paths. These creatures, like zombies, crawl senselessly across the surface. But very soon the living mass turns into a mush. The unfortunate invertebrates are crushed, eaten, and disemboweled until they return to the depths of the soil. But why all this senseless violence? Why do earthworms leave their underground home?
You've probably been told since childhood that worms crawl out of the ground after a downpour because they're flooded. They say that water fills all the passages, and the unfortunate invertebrates have no choice but to crawl out. It sounds logical, if not for one “but”. Earthworms can live underwater for several hours, and sometimes up to several days! However, water-saturated soil means a lack of air pockets, and therefore a lack of oxygen. It is the lack of oxygen (anaerobic conditions), and not “flooding” in the literal sense, that forces them to seek air on the surface.
Also, during a downpour, the soil temperature drops and the acidity increases, and the worms feel it! The invertebrates climb to the surface, where they seek more or less stable conditions.
And scientists believe that the worms become victims of their own facapa. The vibrations from the rain remind them of the sounds that insectivores make when digging holes. The brainless (again, in every sense) invertebrates run away in fear to avoid meeting with underground carnivores. But ironically, they immediately fall into the clutches of predators from the surface: hedgehogs, birds and… people.
No, people don't eat worms, but fishermen often take advantage of their weaknesses. They do everything from pouring potassium permanganate on the ground to invent strange contraptions to parody the vibrations of rain, to even pumping electricity into the soil to lure invertebrates as bait. Unfortunately, the unfortunate inhabitants of the dungeon have no choice but to fall for the tricks of sapiens.
