When I overfed and overheated my carpet bed I noticed mostly adults nearest to the hottest areas. Mostly juvenile were in the more temperate perimeter. I don't know why. Maybe adult worms are more tolerant to diverse conditions. It is interesting!

When harvesting VC I did notice that the worms found in lower region were mostly (all??) adults. Might be cocoons that were late to hatch and were trapped there as babies/juvies and lived on whatever available while the others moved up.

When my verd starts revolting by 'climbing the walls' I first give them a stern talking to; then direct, unambiguous threats, then I feed them to the fishes.

Jokes aside, it is an interesting observation. My first thought was differential sensitivity. I'm not exactly talking about different levels of "tolerance" as mendopete mentioned, but rather a genuine differential in the ability to sense/detect some stimulus. Old humans cannot hear or see as well as young ones, but they aren't more "tolerant". (Often quite the contrary.) I'm neither arguing or disputing mendopete's suggestion, as I have no clue really. I just wanted to make sure the difference between "tolerance" and "sensitivity" was clear. The cause may be one or the other or neither or both. Again, it is an interesting observation. This is the kind of thread I like: observation of behavioral response to stimuli.

I think I am going to be 'stimulating' my verd with electricity before too long. ("Harvesting" in a month or two.) I intend to start with VERY low DC voltages. It will be interesting - to me at least - to see if I can find a voltage low enough not to 'disturb' them.

News at 11.

Paul

My guess is that the juveniles are more sensitive. The adults avoid the over fed zone, but they do so without escaping the bedding. Though conventional wisdom says that juvenile worms are more adaptable (worms tend to favor the conditions they were hatched into), it seems that the adults are more forgiving of a less-than-optimum environment.

Or the adults all went to the basement for a little fun when the refreshments arrived and all the kids went ewwww and tried to make themselves scarce. Could be a pheromone sort of situation where only those able to function properly at the party get the signal and to all others its like a signal to get the h e double hockey sticks out of dodge.

I do think its a great observation though regardless of what its meaning is as there is probably some real reason in why they behave this way.

A handy self harvesting technique.