Earthworms under water

Factual Questions
1

I live in South Central Pa, and the temp. today was 40 degrees at 4pm, on December 17th. I was hiking in the woods, way off of the main trail. A place nobody ever goes, as there is no trail. I was taking photos along a crystal clear and very cold stream coming down a hill.

Under the water were two regular size earthworms, tangled together and very much alive. It was about 3 inches deep and it appeared as though the current was moving them, but after 10 minutes I could positively tell that they were alive.

After closer inspection, there were two very small worms, and a medium size worm as well. They were not touching the tangled up worms, but they always remained very close by.

I looked it up on the web but found not discussions about worms living under water, let alone this time of year.

I would really appreciate a response to let me know, if you know anything about this.

I have photographs of the earthworms underwater, tangled up and what appears to be them very much alive. Nobody would ever be fishing in this area.

Thanks
Todd

2

From experiments I conducted as a child I can confirm that Earthworms can live for a long time fully immersed in water i.e. several hours to a day. The wikipedia article says that some Earthworm species can live for several days underwater if the water is sufficently oxygenated. They will eventually die though.

The reason they don’t drown is that they breathe through their skin via osmosis so they can take their oxygen from the water.