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| Clumps of worms scattered on the road |
Is this is swarm of worms? This might look weird, but worms are actually very social creatures, worms do travel together in the same direction as a herd, you just don't really need to worry as much about a stampede.
This kind of clustering behavior can actually protect the earthworms, they create a kind of mucus or protective covering to deter predators like flatworms and there's of course a lot more of this mucus when there's a big group of worms.
But why are the worms in the middle of the road? Right before this video for a few days, there was a horrible torrential rain storm, this means that the ground is likely to be quite saturated with water, so the worms may have made their way up to the surface to avoid getting waterlogged.
This place to go to avoid waterlogged soil is the place of highest elevation, which in this case just happens to be the middle of a road. Now every worm has the same need, so every worm ends up same place.
The other reason these worms may all be in the center of the highway is that, maybe, there were lots more worms all over the highway and then a bunch of cars went by.
Source: YouTube by Science Channel
