The big ones may not be adult quite yet. How long have you had them? Did you order pit run?

they don't "shed" - also note that while sexual maturity of EF is about 6-8 weeks, the band may not be really prominent until they're actually breeding, and that maight be delayed by really good conditions

good pics here of various species

Bill

All Bins are years old and should contain complete populations. That was a great website, and I notice that on most of the pictures of the EF there was no clitellum but when it was there, it was obvious.

I have looked at the biggest worms and have only the faintest hint of the Clitellum on 1 worm. I will keep looking and let you know.

By the way, that website says that the EF can vary its colour depending on its feed. I can vouch for that. My three bins have 3 seemingly different species, 1 in each, from yellow to red. But the ones that are yellow have mainly paper in the bin. As the site says, this can cause them to be more stripy. Well in my case, it makes them yellow.

Thanks for all your help, if anyone knows any other reason why the Clitellum might be faint, let me know.

It has just changed from warm to cold here (Canberra Australia), winter is about to set in, calour is coming into the leaves on my maple tree and someone down the street put their wood heater on for the first time tonight.

Could it be weather...?

yes it could - I thought of that at first but didn't think you folks were into real fall yet :)

I always find way fewer small ones during the cold months, so I would think that with a drop in temp the worms "batten down the hatches" and may drop any cocoons they can in preparation for their own possible demise, and emptying their egg/sperm collection may affect the appearance ..... interesting

Bill

4 weeks on and I have an update.

It seems that my worm bins contained juvenile populations.

I spoke to the person I got the worm bins off, and they said that they may have neglected the bins for a while and only recently started feeding them properly again. Iam guessing that when I got them, all the oldies had died and the new generation was not yet mature.

There is now a large proportion with a Clitelum and they grown ups are big!!!! Much bigger than the largest 4 weeks ago, and fat. I have been adding chicken pellets which may account for the fat ones.

Always pays to wait and see. Its obvious now that they were juvenilles, but I would have argued that that couldnt happen in a mature bed. Now I know the recent history, it makes sense.

Thanks for the help.

Raphael

Interesting thread, Raphael, and thank you for the follow up. I found it very interesting that you have some yellow worms in your mostly paper bin. I just noticed that I have a few yellow worms in my bin. Until reading this thread I thought that they might be sick even though they act just fine and look fine other than the color. I feed a variety of kitchen scraps as well as paper in my one and only bin. Maybe the yellow guys prefer the paper?

I'll know now also that if I ever notice none of them have a clitelum that I have only juveniles in my bin! Thanks.