Longitudinal muscles run the length of the body and can shorten or lengthen the worm. The earthworm has no lungs or gills. It breathes through its thin skin, which is in contact with the air between the particles of soil. When it rains, these air spaces fill with water, and earthworms then must either come to the surface or drown. If the weather becomes too dry and warm, a worm will die.
Earthworms feed on dead plant material that is found in the soil.
This is why some people say an earthworm eats its way through the soil. An earthworm has both male and female reproductive organs, but each worm must mate with another worm to form eggs. After mating, eggs are laid in a cufflike structure that surrounds the body of the earthworm. The clitellum, a few large annuli of the body, produces this cuff for the eggs. As the earthworm moves, the cuff slides along the body and over the head.